The Girl in the Scarf
by kate221b
Summary: Sherlock has a new assistant, but who is she and what does she mean to Sherlock Holmes? Sherlock/OC relationship. Part of a series of stories that continues with Consequences, Danger Nights and Madness and Memory.
1. Chapter 1

Kate arrived at the crime scene just before eleven, summoned by a text from Sherlock, 'At crime scene, join us there after work?' Intrigued she had agreed, and somehow after a ten hour shift found herself walking up to the flashing lights in a quiet residential street not far from the hospital.

She gave her name to the police officer stationed at the the tape outside the house, and was let through. Trying to look as if she attended murder scenes every day, she walked into the house, and showed her hospital ID to the CID officer inside the front door. 'Kate Watson,' she said. 'Sherlock Holmes asked me to come.' The officer looked confused. 'Lestrade,' she called, 'Someone here to see the freak.'

Kate tried not to smile. 'You must be Sally Donovan,' she said.

'Yes, how did you know?'

'Stab in the dark,' Kate said.

A solidly built, affable looking detective in his late forties came down the stairs and shook hands with Kate. 'Greg Lestrade,' he said. 'Sherlock said he'd asked you to come. If you don't mind putting on a forensics suit then I'll take you through. I presume you're not squeamish about dead bodies?'

'I'm an A&E doctor,' Kate said darkly, pulling on the proffered suit, 'I've seen a lot of dead bodies, and quite a few severed limbs. It takes quite a lot to make me feel squeamish.'

Lestrade looked vaguely impressed. 'Fine, come on through then. Oh and just don't touch anything without wearing gloves.'

He led Kate through into a living room, where Sherlock Holmes was standing thoughtfully in a corner, looking at a woman in her twenties, who was lying face down on the floor. Blood was matted in her blonde hair and she was very much dead.

Sherlock looked up as she came in. 'Ah Kate,' he said. 'I need a fresh pair of eyes, tell me what you see.'

So this, then, was Sherlock in work mode. Kate walked up to him and kissed him on the cheek. 'Hullo Sherlock, lovely to see you too. Now tell me why I'm here?'

As she kissed him he turned his head and the upper part of his body towards her, instinctively, like iron filings redirecting along a magnet, his eyes lingering for just a second too long on her face. A casual observer might not have noticed the interaction, but John noticed and smiled to see his friends distraction. Lestrade also was not entirely oblivious to it, but was unsure as to its implications. His eyes darted between Sherlock and Kate as he considered.

Kate noticed too, and stifling a smile she deliberately walked across the room to the other side of the woman. Sherlock followed her progress with his eyes. 'Sherlock,' she repeated, amused at his reaction to her. 'Tell me why I'm here.'

He started, 'Sorry, got distracted. I need a fresh viewpoint. Tell me what you see.' Another test then. Fine, this Kate could deal with.

'Okay, young woman, probably mid twenties, lying facedown in a living room which is obviously not hers,' she said contemplating the scene.

'Why do you say that?'

'Shoes,' said Kate, as if it was obvious. Nobody would wear shoes like that,' she indicated the girl's designer shoes with her head, 'on an expensive carpet like this. If it was her own house she would have taken them off in the hallway before coming into this room.'

He nodded. 'Its not her house, although there are other ways to make that deduction. What else?'

'Well, she's lying facedown, which would indicate an assault from behind, but the head injury is unlikely to be the cause of death. She pulled on a pair of gloves from a box on the coffee table. Can I touch her?' she asked, looking at Lestrade.

'Please,' said Lestrade, intrigued.

'She has a laceration over her occiput, but its already partly healed, although it may have re-bled when she fell, hence the blood in her hair, and the wound has been sutured with - thats odd.'

'Go on,' Sherlock said.

'Its been stitched with silk, 0-0 Mersilk by the look of it, the sort of thing I would use to tie in a chest drain, never to stitch skin.'

Sherlock looked slightly perturbed by this new information. 'You didn't notice that?' asked Kate.

'A suture is a suture to me,' Sherlock said with a shrug. 'John said that it was unusual, but that people used different materials'

Kate shook her head. 'Nobody I work with would use silk to stitch a wound. Prolene or vicryl yes. This is the sort of thing that a vet would use.'

'So what you're saying is that somebody non-medical, probably a vet, stitched her head up - how many days ago?'

'Three or four I would say, looking at the wound, but they knew what they were doing. The sutures are even, well-spaced, and the wound edges are well-opposed. Its not a botch job, but I would say done by somebody who isn't used to treating people. Could she work at a vets, have hit her head there and they sutured it to save her a trip to A&E?'

'It's possible, we don't know who she is at the moment, but we can check local vets to see if anyone knows her, or if anyone is missing.'

Kate rapidly inspected the rest of the woman. 'No obvious neck trauma, no blood anywhere else that I can see, she must have fallen forward fairly quickly, she didn't have time to save herself. She pulled up the sleeves of the girls top after a nod from Lestrade. 'Here,' she indicated a mark on the upper arm. 'Puncture mark, that would fit with being injected with something that made her fall.' She glanced up at Sherlock who was looking nonchalant. 'You've already see this, right?'

'Yes, but I'd be interested to hear your theories,' he said, holding her gaze for just a second too long again. Kate had to look away first, but not before she had noticed Sherlock's lip curving upwards slightly, amused at her discomfort, and by the situation. Good to know that they were both finding this forced formality challenging.

Clearing her throat she tried to stay focused. 'Let me think, so you've got a head wound sutured with silk, most likely by a vet several days a go, and a murderer who has access to sedative and potentially lethal drugs, that would tie in with a vet wouldn't it? If you're trying to find a single unifying cause for all of her symptoms.

'Ochams's razor,' Sherlock said, with a smile.

'Exactly.'

'Which is the same conclusion that we'd come to from the injection marks. There are animal hairs from several different animals on her coat too, which would fit with her working at a vets. Anything else you can tell us?'

'Give me a minute.' She looked at the girls shoes, took them off her feet, inspected the label and the underneath of them, then looked at the labels on her clothes. John and Sherlock watched her with amusement. Finally she straightened up.

'The shoes must have been a gift, they're Jimmy Choos, you're talking serious money. The rest of her clothes are cheap. The shoes must have been a recent gift, there's still part of a barcode inside one of them. I don't know if shops use individual barcodes, but is there a chance you could track down where she bought them from that?'

'Its a generic bar code,' Sherlock said, 'So no help there. We didn't pick up on the discrepancy between the clothes and the shoes though, thats worth considering.'

'Thats because you're boys,' Kate said gravely. 'As long as you have clothes to put on you don't really notice what they are. So present maybe? The shoes I mean.'

'Expensive present, so a lover maybe, that fits with our original theory. She was obviously lured here for some reason. Dressed up like that? Presumably to meet a man. The man who bought her those shoes I would imagine.'

'Who is a vet?' Kate asked, seeing how this worked. 'The same vet who stitched up her head, the same one who killed her?'

'Possibly,' Sherlock said, 'but lets not jump to conclusions. What else can you tell me Kate?'

She met his gaze and this time held it, trying to work out what he wanted from her. 'Thats pretty much it, I think,' she started to say, then realising what he was asking softly said, 'Oh, that.'

She hesitated, and he uncharacteristically picked up on her discomfort. 'Lestrade, could you give us five minutes?' he asked.

'Just don't wreck my crime scene,' he said. 'I'll be next door when you're finished'

Sherlock pushed the door to behind him. 'It doesn't work like that, Sherlock,' Kate said quietly. 'You know that.'

'Try Kate, please.'

John looked confused and opened his mouth to speak. Sherlock raised a hand to silence him.

Kate knelt down next to the girl, looked at her face, and considered.

She looks - happy,' she said, 'not afraid. I know that facial expression can change after death or as a result of the drugs that she was given, but that would fit wouldn't it? She must have been coming towards someone who was already in the room, someone she was pleased to see.'

John still looked confused. 'Empathy?' he asked Sherlock, 'Is that what you thought Kate could bring to the investigation?'

'Partly,' Sherlock said, 'although it would seem that it works better with the living. Kate picks up on emotion better than anyone I've ever met. I wanted to see if I could use that.'

If Kate Watson was disappointed in his explanation for her presence, she didn't show it. She smiled at him, despite her best efforts to not distract him from the work at hand, and his eyes told her everything that she need to know. This time they both looked away at the same time. Focus, Kate, she thought. Exchanging meaningful glances with Sherlock Holmes wasn't going to help with the case at hand.

'There must have been two of them then,' John said slowly, turning round to look at the room properly, tactfully ignoring the interaction between Sherlock and Kate this time. 'Thats what we're saying yes? So the person that she expected to see, the one that she presumably arranged to meet was in front of her, and a second assailant, who then came from behind to inject her'

Sherlock nodded. ' Exactly,' he said. So,' he began to pace around the room, focusing on the body on the floor, speaking very fast, 'She came here to meet someone, probably a man; someone she was pleased to see, says a relationship; in a house you rent by the night, says an affair. Someone who could afford to buy her expensive shoes, says someone with money, presumably an older man.'

'Head wound stitched several days ago, probably by a vet suggests that she worked with him; also statistically many affairs occur between colleagues. Her clothes suggest a low paid job, receptionist or veterinary nurse probably. Now why would he want to kill her, or didn't he? He was in front of her,' he moved to in front of her head, 'so someone else was behind her,' he indicated to John, who moved to her feet, standing a few feet from the floor-length curtains. 'Probably hiding behind the curtains, so she wouldn't have known have known that they were there, its possible that even he didn't know that they were there. The murderer then came out from behind the curtains and injected her before she had time to turn round. Someone used to giving intramuscular injections then, either a powerful sedative, or more likely something more lethal. The murderer knew that she was coming here to meet the other person and wanted her dead, says a wife. So we're looking for a husband and wife team of vets, with a pretty young blonde receptionist or veterinary nurse, probably the latter given the animal hairs on her clothes; cant be too difficult to find.'

'Impressive,' Kate said, 'now, if there's nothing else you need me for, I'm going home.'

Sherlock looked up in surprise, 'You're not coming back to the lab with us?'

'No. Tempting as an all night session with you and John sounds, I have to be at work at eight tomorrow, and unlike you I do need at least some sleep'

Sherlock nodded thoughtfully 'Okay, but take this', he took off his scarf and looped it, still tied around Kate's neck, 'its cold out there.' She smiled at his thoughtfulness, aware that Lestrade was still glancing at them intermittently from the other room.

She kissed him swiftly on the cheek, 'Night, Sherlock, see you tomorrow. Good night John.'

'Goodnight Kate, see you soon.'

She went back into the other room to take off her forensics suit, leaving John and Sherlock talking animatedly in the other room. 'So how exactly do you know Sherlock?' Lestrade asked her as she took the suit off and put her coat back on.

'John works with us in A&E sometimes,' Kate said evasively. 'He thought that I might be able to help with some of the trauma aspects of their cases. He's a little rusty now he's mainly in General Practice.'

Sally glanced at her sharply, considering repeating her standard warning about Sherlock, but something in Kate's eyes made her realise that this would probably be ill-advised. 'Will you be okay getting home?' she asked instead.

'Yes, fine thanks. I'm only a couple of stops away, and the tubes are still running.'

As Kate walked towards the tube station, Sally asked softly, 'Now how on earth does a girl like that end up tied up with those two?'

Lestrade chuckled. 'That Sally, unless I'm very much mistaken,' he glanced at the next room to make sure Sherlock and John were still occupied and dropped his voice to a whisper, 'is Sherlock Holmes' girlfriend.'

'The freak has got a girlfriend?' Sally's voice was raised slightly in her incredulity, despite her attempts to keep it quiet. 'You're not serious. What makes you think that?' Every other detective in the room was suddenly listening to their conversation, while trying very hard to make it look as if they were otherwise occupied.

'The fact that he looks at her as if she's something to eat,' Lestrade slowed down for effect, 'and that she's wearing his scarf.'

Four people shot past him to the door to watch Kate walk down the street, trying to work out if the scarf round her neck was really Sherlock's.

Sherlock and John turned round to see what the commotion at the door was. 'Everything okay in here?' asked Lestrade, coming back into the room, trying hard not to laugh at his team's reaction.

'Yes, just about finished' said Sherlock, tapping away furiously at his mobile phone, then holding it up in triumph to reveal a picture of the dead girl from a facebook page. 'Clare Brett, works as a veterinary nurse at Tower Road Veterinary Practice in Balham. Having an affair with this man, Stephen Harris,' he navigated to a staff picture on the practice webpage, and indicated a middle-aged man in the middle of the picture, with Clare Brett clearly visible on the edge of the group. 'His wife, on the left in the picture, found out about their affair, somehow got into the house before they did, hid behind the curtain and injected Clare Brett with a lethal drug before she had time to realise that anyone else was there. There's an out of hours mobile number on the website. If you phone it I'm sure you'll be able to track them down without too many problems.' Looking at his watch he said, 'I think that just about wraps it up. John, I'll see you at the lab at 9am sharp, and we can tie up the loose ends and check the post-mortem report when it comes through. Goodnight all' and he swept out of the door.

'Share a taxi?' shouted John after him. 'We're going in opposite directions' replied Sherlock without turning round.

John shook his head, exasperated by his friend as always.

'Right, well I'm heading back to Baker Street' he said. ' We'll be in touch in the morning'

'John, wait,' said Lestrade. 'What happened to Sherlock's scarf? He had it when he came in, and now he is uncharacteristically scarf-less.

'I couldn't possibly comment,' said John

'And Kate Watson?'

'Is a friend' said John. 'Goodnight,' and he walked off towards the tube station to avoid further questions.

Kate arrived back at her flat twenty minutes later to find a tall, thin figure in a dark blue trench coat leaning nonchalantly against the railings by her front door. Cab, of course. That was how he had beaten her back.

'Now what on earth, are you doing here,' she murmured, kissing him on the cheek for the third time that night. He turned his head, so that the kiss hit the corner of his mouth. Kate allowed her hand to linger on the back of his neck for longer than she meant to, despite her best intentions.

'I can't come and see you?' he asked.

'Not when you're in the middle of a case, no. The work comes first. We agreed that.'

'The case is solved,' he said calmly. 'We know how, we know why, we know by whom. Lestrade and his team can do the rest, all that remains is to tie up some loose ends, and I can do that later.'

Kate narrowed her eyes and looked at him appraisingly. 'Sherlock Holmes, if you think that you can come here, have your wicked way with me, and then go back to the lab for the rest of the night then you've got another thought coming.'

'And if I was to come here, stay the night, walk you to work in the morning, and maybe even buy you coffee on the way, then would that be acceptable?'

'Perfectly' she said, laughing as she let him in.


	2. Chapter 2

Eight weeks previously

It was a typical, wet Wednesday afternoon. The rain was keeping people away, and having seen two patients with earache, a back pain and three sprained ankles since lunch, Kate was bored. She sometimes wondered if she got bored too easily, then reminded herself that having the concentration span of the average goldfish was probably an advantage for an A&E doctor. She answered her phone in the Minor Injuries area while typing up notes from the last patient. Switchboard asking her to take an outside call from John Watson. Now that was someone that she hadn't seen around for a while. Kate liked John. He kept himself to himself, but worked hard when he came to do locums. As she waited for the call to be put through she wondered if she could persuade him to work a shift at the weekend, they were short-staffed as normal.

John however was not phoning to discuss locums, instead he had a favour to ask. 'Friend of mine has dislocated his shoulder,' he told her, 'If I bring him in to you can you have a look?'

'Of course,' Kate said, judging from the sound of the traffic that they were already in a car on the way to A&E. 'You're not up for doing it yourself Hippocratic method and giving him a stick to bite on then? Or was that only in your army days.'

John chuckled. 'I tried, he won't let me. We're on our way - should be there in ten minutes.'

'Fine. I'll tell reception to buzz you straight through - I'm in minors this afternoon anyway, and it beats seeing another sprained ankle.' 

Ten minutes later John arrived with a white-faced man in a long, blue coat cradling his left arm. 'Kate, this is Sherlock Holmes.'

'Come into cubicle three' she said, then looking at Sherlocks shoulder, after finally , painfully removing his coat. 'Okay, squared off, pain on minimal movement, looks dislocated to me. Right, x-ray then we can put it back in. Analgesia? She asked John. He shook his head.

'Didn't have any on me.'

'We'll get you some. So how did you do it?' she asked as she filled out the x-ray form.

'Climbing over some railings,' he said. 'I fell off.' There was an edge of sarcasm in his voice then that she chose to ignore. Here then was a man who reacted to threat with attack, but of the intellectual not the physical kind. Intellectual threat she was well equipped to deal with.

'How high?'

He shrugged, then winced at the pain in his shoulder. 'Eight foot?'

'You don't look like the juvenile delinquent type,' she said, handing him the form.

'I was chasing somebody,' he said.

'Did you catch him?'

'Of course,' he said with a smile. 'I always catch them.'

Kate frowned. 'You're not a police officer though. Private investigator?'

'Consulting detective,' he said.

'Don't get him onto the subject, Kate,' John said. 'You'll be here all afternoon. I'll take him round to X-ray.' 

...

Back from X-ray twenty minutes later, Kate showed them the image on the computer screen. 'Anterior dislocation, should be fairly easy to put back on. We'll get you some morphine and some sedation and give it a tug.'

Sherlock shook his head, 'No sedation,' he said. Then to Kate's quizzical look, 'It affects memory, doesn't it?'

'Sometimes, but only short-term.

He nodded. 'Exactly. I can't afford to forget anything at this point in a case. Can you do it without'

Kate looked at him and considered for a moment. 'Yes,' she said reluctantly,' but only if you can trust me enough to relax your shoulder. Not many people can do that, but we can give it a go.'

Sherlock nodded. 'Fine. John, why don't you go and update Lestrade on what we've discovered so far. Get him to organise a warrant for that warehouse.'

'You don't want me to stay?' John asked.

'No, I think that Kate and I will get along just fine, ' Sherlock said, holding her gaze. She tried to look away and failed. What an extraordinary man.

'I'll be back a bit later then,' John said uncertainly, looking slightly confused.

'So how does this work?' Sherlock asked Kate, finally looking away.

'Its a very simple technique really. You need to trust me enough to let me take the weight of the arm, and manipulate it into the right position. If you can completely relax your shoulder muscles then it will go back into joint, because that anatomically is where it wants to be. If you tense your muscles to any degree it will stay out of joint, and then it's sedation or a general anaesthetic. The problem is that pain makes you tense your muscles, so we'll get you some morphine and then we can give it a go.'

'About the morphine,' he said.

'You need something or this is never going to work.'

'Its not that I object to morphine, quite the reverse in fact. Lets just say that it might bring back memories that are best forgotten.' He was watching her face, assessing her reaction.

'Thats fine' Kate said. Then intrigued, 'out of interest, does John know?'

'Of course,' he said crisply. 'It was a long time ago, but still I'd rather not.'

'Fine,' Kate said. It just went to show that you never could tell what had happened in people's pasts. 'Gas and air then?'

He nodded. 'That would be perfectly acceptable.'

She provided him with a bottle of entonox and a mouthpiece, and then when she was sure that he was relaxed enough, she lifted his arm up, slowly, very slowly, talking to him as she did so for distraction, and watching his face for signs of pain. Pain would tense the muscles and keep the shoulder out of joint. 'So, consulting detective,' she said. 'That means what - that the police ask you when they get stuck? Other people too probably, but it's the police work that would make you call yourself a detective.'

'Yes, that's exactly what it means,' he said, then looking at the Entonox mouthpiece, which he was holding in one hand, 'I don't think I need this. Just keep talking to me and I think I'll be fine.'

'Talking isn't usually an issue for me,' she said with a smile. 'Then I'm guessing that you're good at what you do, but also have a private income.' He seemed surprisingly relaxed, distracted as he had said by their conversation.

He looked at her appraisingly, 'And you are very clever for an A&E doctor,' he said slowly. 'Oxford? And how did you work that out?'

'Yes, yes and your coat is much too good to have been paid for by any police fund in the current climate. How did you know about Oxford?'

'Clever, but a bit too much of a rebeI for Cambridge. Not enough of a rebel to stuck two fingers up at the establishment entirely and go somewhere red brick.'

'Very good. I imagine you went to the other place? I can spot a Tab at fifty paces,' she said with a smile.

He smiled back and she felt his arm relax. Now they were getting somewhere. 'Yes, Cauis college, how did you know?'

'Public school, old money . Cambridge does old school much more than Oxford.'

'True. Unless you rebel against family tradition - like you.'

'Now that is a good deduction. You're right, of course, my father wanted me to go to Cambridge like him. I went to Oxford as yet another act of rebellion - but I was too much of a romantic to go somewhere else entirely.'

He looked at his shoulder. 'It's not going to go back is it?'

'I'm not giving up yet,' Kate said.'It'll go when you forget about it. Why did you become a private detective? It's an odd choice for a Cambridge graduate.'

'I like solving puzzles,' he said. Kate raised an eyebrow to show that she wasn't convinced. It sounded too simple for a man who appeared so complex. 'I suppose that there is a satisfaction to being able to unravel what other people cannot. Also seeing justice done is - tidy somehow.'

Ah. Autistic traits. This was more like it, but there was something else. Nothing like a complex personality to unravel on a Wednesday afternoon.

She looked at him, considering. 'I don't think that's it. I think that you have probably feel the need to do something that you perceive as useful, although you would probably hate to admit it. It's not that different to medicine is it? It's all about unravelling all the available information and coming up with an answer. I use that to treat people, and you use it to solve the crime. It's not so different what we do, you and I.'

'Apart from you, I imagine do what you do out of a sense of altruism, while I do what I do because I am a cold, arrogant and cynical man who enjoys proving that he is more intelligent than everybody else.' His tone was clipped. Was he being self-deprecating, or using attack as a defence again, pre-empting her opinion of him?

Kate felt the buzz of insight, something clicking into place and spoke without thinking. 'No.' she said, ' I don't get that from you at all. I look at you and I see a man who has built walls round himself against the world. I think that you use words to defend yourself, to keep people away. But beneath it all I see a man who is broken, vulnerable and desperate to be understood.' Sherlock stared at her in surprise. There was a loud clunk, and his shoulder went back into place.

'Sorry,' said Kate, mentally kicking herself. 'I get carried away sometimes.' She tried to hide her disconcertion with efficiency, as if she came out with sweeping character analyses every day. 'Right, let's get you back to X-ray and check its back in, and then you can go home and come back to the fracture clinic tomorrow. 'Can I have a poly sling in here?' she shouted out of the cubicle, still supporting his arm.

'How did you do that?' he asked, still staring at her.

'Sometimes my mouth runs away with me. Sorry. It was inappropriate.'

He shook his head 'No, it was brilliant, and - correct. I would say someone had told you, but not even John knows me that well.'

Kate stared at him. It really was turning into the most unusual day. They were interrupted by a nurse coming in with the sling. As Kate fitted it Sherlock he said calmly 'Have dinner with me.'

She laughed. 'That's the morphine speaking. I'm flattered, but no, thank you for the offer, but I don't go out with patients.'

'I didn't have any morphine,' he said quietly. 'I find you - intriguing,' he sounded almost puzzled by his own response. Then after a slight pause he asked, 'If I wasn't a patient would you have dinner with me?'

'That is a theoretical question which I choose not to answer,' smiled Kate as John came back into the cubicle.

'Back in?' he asked. 'Told you she was the best Sherlock.'

'You have no idea,' he said dryly still staring at Kate as if she'd just emerged fully clothed from a clam shell.

Post X-ray Kate gave Sherlock a packet of painkillers and a fracture clinic appointment card. 'Not that I think that there's any chance you'll actually turn up for the appointment,' she said. 'Just do me a favour and make sure you keep it in the sling for at least a week, will you - and try and stay away from any more railings.'

Sherlock smiled 'Thank you,' he said. 'If I promise to stay away from high objects, might I borrow that intellect from time to time? I think that we might have some cases that you could assist us with.'

Kate tried not to show her confusion. John however was looking openly puzzled 'You think that I could help you to solve cases?' she said. 'Why? I'm a doctor, not a detective.'

'You said it yourself, its not that different what we do you and I. Lets just say that I suspect that you have talents which I could use.'

Kate shook her head, unsure what to make of him. 'If you honestly believe that I can help, then of course, but I can't promise anything.'

Typing up her notes Kate was surprised when John stuck his head back into the cubicle.

'Sorry, forgot my coat. Thanks for that, Kate. I know that he's not the easiest person to help.'

'No, I thought that he was fascinating,' Kate said.

John looked surprised 'Really? That's not the effect he has on most people. Generally they just want to punch him.'

Kate opened her mouth to tell him about the dinner invitation, but thought better of it.'

'I'm not most people though, am I.'


	3. Chapter 3

She didn't have to wait long to see him again. A week later a slightly confused looking John arrived at the majors desk with Sherlock close behind. The sling was conspicuously absent.

'Shoulder better already?' she asked.

He had the good grace to look slightly sheepish. 'Its getting there,' he said, 'but the sling was proving to be a target. That's not why we're here. I was hoping that you could give me your opinion on something. Do you have five minutes?'

Kate looked at the screen and the two ambulances queuing to offload patients. 'Not just at the moment, no, but if you were to go and get me some coffee, proper coffee from the place down the road, not the muck they sell here, then I could spare you some time in maybe twenty minutes? Give me time to clear some of these patients first.'

Sherlock nodded and left without a word. 'See you in a bit then,' John said, following him. Precisely twenty minutes later they are back, coffee in hand.

'Go and wait in my office', she said to John, throwing him the keys. I'll be there in a few minutes.'

Finishing her conversation with her patient's relatives, Kate finally reached her office and took the proffered coffee gratefully. 'Did I get it right?' asked Sherlock.

'Skinny latte, yes, thank you. Then unable to resist she added, 'and black for you with two sugars, white coffee with milk, no sugar for John. Of course John would rather have had a cappuccino but he knows that waiting for the milk frothing annoys you. Now he drinks it out of habit.'

John shook his head, 'I'd forgotten that you could do that too,' he said with a broad smile.

Kate shrugged, 'A lifetime of reading people, you get very good at it. Now what can I do for you?'

'You didn't ask if you were right,' Sherlock said slowly.

'I'm always right,' Kate said with a grin. Now, what can I help you with?'

'You're not going to tell me?'

Suddenly Kate felt as if she was in a sword fight, it reminded of evenings spent in friend's rooms at college, when they were playing at being Brideshead. Mahler or Shostakovitch in the background and furious battles of wit and philosophy over too many bottles of port. Port she remembered gave you the worst morning after headache known to man, but that never seemed to put them off.

'That's your talent, not mine. I can read people's characters and their likes and dislikes, not circumstance or motive.'

He seemed oddly relieved. He pulled out his phone and showed her some pictures . 'Body found in woods in Kent, animal attack they think. The initial reports say wild boar, but I'm not convinced.'

Kate looked at the photos carefully. 'I'm no expert but it looks more like a cat bit to me, bigger than a domestic cat, but not a big cat. Ocelot maybe, or something a similar size? Big puncture wounds from the incisors.' She looked up from the phone. 'But this is straight forward, surely. You must be able to measure the size of the bite, the depth of the puncture wound and work out the type of animal from there.'

John nodded. 'Thats what I told him, but he seemed to think you might have something else to add.' Kate suddenly felt uncomfortably as if she was in a viva for an exam she hadn't applied for. It was like one of those dreams where you were trying to explain that you weren't actually taking A-level French, and shouldn't be in the oral exam for it.

'Oh, I see,' she said softly, looking at Sherlock. The intensity of his gaze made her look away. An interview then, but for what job she had no idea.

'More than one animal then, claw marks as well. Again depth and width of the scratches should enable you to identify the animal. All look similar, so probably a pack of the same animals. Defence marks on the forearms and the face is relatively spared, suggests this is the cause of death, she was conscious at least at the onset.'

'Now here's the mystery isn't it? A pack of wildcats in a Kent forest is unlikely. I would say she was probably killed elsewhere then her body was moved here. Were there scratch marks on the trees or paw prints?'

Sherlock shook his head 'No, nothing.'

'Killed elsewhere then and her body moved afterwards. I would imagine fibres from the clothes, soil samples etc would tell you where. There can't be many places keeping a pack of wild cats. Zoos and animal parks mainly, possibly the odd private owner, but I would imagine that there is some kind of register.'

They discussed a few more theories, then Kate was bleeped back to the shop floor. As she followed Sherlock out of the office she asked quietly, 'Did I pass?'

He met her gaze and held it just a fraction too long. 'Yes' he said simply. Afterward Kate realised that they were circling each other, like a dance where the partners have their eyes locked in each others, never touching, just continually circling each other, inches apart. Afterwards she would realise that they had been dancing like this ever since they first met.

Two days later she got a phone call from Sherlock asking if she could meet him and John in the lab to help with the same case. They had identified the variety of wild cat that the wounds came from, and were tracking down location from soil samples and other evidence, exactly as Kate had suggested. She was not naive enough to believe that he had really needed her help, but was flattered that he seemed to value her next day he texted to ask if she wanted to meet him and John in the pub to celebrate solving the case.

Kate found the work fascinating, although she was never convinced that she added much that Sherlock could not have deduced on his own. Sherlock, however, talked about perspective, and his theory she saw things from a different angle. Help on cases frequently seemed to turn into evenings in the pub. Sherlock started turning up in A&E asking for random pieces of information, always with coffee in hand. Kate tried to tell herself that her pleasure in seeing him was a Pavlovian response to the prospect of coffee, but she wasn't entirely convinced.


	4. Chapter 4

Meeting up with Sherlock and John for a drink after work to celebrate the end of a case had become something of a habit for Kate. Staying in the pub with Sherlock for a good hour after John had left them to drive to his sisters for the weekend, was however a new experience. He had turned out to be surprisingly easy company. Relaxed now that the case was over, no longer wound like a coiled spring and talking at a hundred miles an hour, and funny, making Kate laugh with stories of past cases and the impossible situations that he had got John into. Finally, when the conversation hit a lull she asked, 'So how come you don't have somewhere better to be on a Friday night?'

'I could ask you the same thing,' he said with a wry smile.

'Ah, but I asked first.'

'Then no, actually, this is exactly where I want to be on a Friday night' he said, maintaining eye contact for just a second too long so that she had to look away first. 'Careful, Sherlock Holmes,' she said with a laugh, 'or I'll think that you're flirting with me.'

'And if I was?' he asked, watching her face as if to assess her reaction.

She looked at him sceptically, automatically assuming that he was joking, then realised from the intensity of his gaze that he was serious.

'Why not?' he asked softly, while she was still trying to work out how to respond.

She stared at him for several minutes, thoughts racing through her head at an alarming speed. He laughed at her expression, breaking the tension. 'Don't tell me that I've actually rendered you speechless, Kate. Now thats something that I never thought I'd see.'

'You're serious.'

'Very, very serious. Yes.'

'I don't know what to say.'

'You could say that its a possibility.'

Very slowly he reached his hand across the table and laced his fingers into hers. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to consider the possibility for just a split second before her rational mind took over. Because this was not something that she could allow to happen, she couldn't risk it, but at the same time here she was on a Friday night, in a pub with Sherlock Holmes, and his hand was holding hers, stroking her palm very gently with his thumb, and it was soft and warm and more gentle than she could ever have imagined possible.

Finally, reluctantly, but without moving her hand, she shook her head slowly and said, 'I can't Sherlock, I'm sorry.'

He was unperturbed by this, focused as always. 'Why not? You're not entirely adverse to the idea, or you would have moved your hand by now.'

Kate sighed, paused for a minute, still failing to move her hand. How could something as simple as holding hands be having this effect on her? Trying to break the tension and at the same time to convince herself to do the sensible thing and move her hand away she said, 'What happened to you not doing relationships?'

'I don't recall ever having that conversation with you,' he said then 'Ah - you've been talking to John.'

'He said that he'd never known you to be in a relationship, and he wasn't sure that you'd ever had one.'

Sherlock allowed himself a small smile. Kate tried to look away from his eyes - too blue, too dangerous and failed, 'You discussed my relationships with John? I'm flattered, Kate,' he said softly.

And this was definitely flirting. Damn, this wasn't going at all the way that she wanted it to.

'So he's wrong?' she asked, fixing her gaze on the table, and drawing patterns in a spill of liquid with her free hand.

'Yes - and no. He's right in that I don't do traditional relationships, but if he's told you that I'm a monk then he's wrong.'

Kate considered, then finally understanding said quietly, 'No strings attached?'

'Thats probably a good way of describing it, yes.'

'And is that what you're proposing?' she asked, looking up at him with a frown.

'No!' Not at all.' He was the one to look away now, staring at their interlaced hands. 'I am proposing something altogether different,' he said very softly, then reached for her other hand. They stayed like that for a long time, both considering, and then finally, reluctantly, Kate took a deep breath and said, 'If I moved my hands away could you please not be offended?'

'That would depend on why you were moving your hands,' he said, and in his face Kate read - past the attempt at keeping things light - a certain vulnerability, a concern that he could have misread the situation, and that was what undid her.

'Because I can't think straight when I'm touching you,' she admitted reluctantly, looking down at their hands, then back up at him to see his face breaking into a relieved smile.

'So it isn't just me?' She had never heard him express doubt before. Silently she shook her head, then slowly slid her hands away.

'Kate...' he began.

'No, just - please, if you keep talking you'll just convince me, and that wouldn't be a good thing for either of us.'

'Why not?' he looked genuinely confused. 'I like you, you like me, isn't that how its meant to work?'

'Its not that simple,' Kate said, watching his beautiful face move to confusion. For such an intelligent man his understanding of human emotion could be so heart-breakingly child-like at time. She reached for his hand again, despite her best intentions, to make him understand this time. 'Sherlock, I like you, I like you a lot. I've never considered you as anything other than a friend until this evening, and I can't say that the prospect of something more isn't tempting, but - my last relationship, it didn't end well, and I don't think that I'm ready to launch into another one yet, not even with you,' she tailed off softly. 'I'm sorry.'

'I am not your last relationship, Kate,' he said softly, fixing her in his piercing gaze again, but there was compassion there, and gentleness, and he was right, he was so, so different to David, and what on earth was she doing?'

'John told you, didn't he,' she said, realising that these conversations about past relationships appeared to have gone two ways, with John acting as the go-between.

'He told me about your ex,' Sherlock said quietly 'and he told me that you lost a baby.'

'Did he tell you that he was violent too?' Kate asked, pulling her hand again, and struggling to keep her voice neutral.

'Yes,' he said, remote and analytical again, 'but I think you probably need to tell me yourself.'

Kate considered, playing with her wine glass for several minutes while she worked out how best to explain.

'I never thought that I'd end up in a relationship like that,' she said carefully, 'It didn't start like that. In the beginning he was charming, kind, everything that I could have asked for. Then he became more controlling; he didn't approve of my friends, and gradually our entire social life began to revolve around him, and his friends, mainly work colleagues. He liked to be in charge, and somehow it was easier to let him tell me what to do than to deal with the consequences of an argument. He wasn't violent, at least not at the beginning, and suppose that I must have loved him. Too much, probably.' She was still playing with her wine glass, unable to look at Sherlock, not wanting to see how he was reacting to this, better to get it all out into the open.

'When you hear about women in violent relationships you think that you'll never let yourself get into that situation, but it doesn't happen suddenly, it happens gradually. First they start controlling you, cutting you off from your family and friends, and you take it as an indication of how much they want to spend time with you, then come the arguments, they start beating you down emotionally, criticising you until you lose any sense of self-worth, so that when the violence does come, when they do finally start pushing you against the wall a little too hard, grabbing your arm and dragging you places that you don't want to go, even hitting you, then you somehow feel that its your fault, and by then its too late to get out.'

She was silent for a long time, lost in her thought. 'But you did get out,' he prompted her, finally.

'Only when I had no other choice. He - blamed me for losing the baby, probably rightly, and he became progressively more violent. One evening it all got out of hand and I got scared, I thought - I thought that he was going to kill me. I locked myself in the bathroom at his flat and called my friend Alice. She phoned the police and he was arrested. That was the end of my last relationship.'

Gentle fingers squeezed hers, and allowed her a few minutes silence. Then his other hand was caressing her cheek, fingers cupping her jaw, gently forcing her face up so that she had to look at him. 'I could never, ever, treat any woman like that Kate, especially not you,' he said softly. She looked and him and read the truth in his eyes, and a compassion that she would not have thought possible. 'If he ever tries to come near you again...'

'I know,' Kate interrupted him, wondering how she knew, and then she was lost. It wasn't even an offer of a protection, it was a fury that anyone should have dared to treat her like that, and an automatic assumption that it was his role to keep her safe.

'Please,' he said simply. 'Give me a chance.'

She stared at him for a long time, then shook her head in wonder, 'If I was going to take a chance, Sherlock Holmes, I would be very tempted to take it with you, but what about you? You tell me that you don't do traditional relationships, and before this evening I have never seen you express any emotion towards anybody, not even John. Its as if you took your feelings, long ago, and put them in a box to stop anyone from being able to hurt you. You tied it up with chains and locks, so securely that I'm not sure that even you know where you put the key. So how do we move forward from there?'

Silently, he took the hand that he was holding, opened it and turned it palm upwards, put an invisible object into it, and closed her fingers over it, covering her hand with his own.

'I know exactly where that key is,' he said softly. 'I always have. I just never had a reason to use it.'

She stared at him, then with her free hand reached across the table, pulled his head towards hers and kissed him as she had been wanting to kiss him for the last twenty minutes.

When she finally broke away, he smiled at her, stroking her cheek again and asked softly.

'Is that a yes, Kate?'

'Its a maybe.' He really was intoxicating, and would it be wrong, so very wrong to at least try for a chance at happiness? 'Twenty four hours, Sherlock Holmes,' she said softly,' thats what I'm offering. Twenty four hours to be completely open and honest with each other, and to see where this thing can take us. But if at the end of that time I decide that thats it, and you never mention it again.'

'It will work, Kate,' he said, 'you know that it will.'

'I hope so,' she murmured, then standing up, 'Come on then'

He stood up too and picked up his coat, 'Where are we going?'

'Home,' she said, then with a small smile at his confusion, 'With you, you idiot, if thats still what you want.'

Sherlock just nodded, as if this was no more than he had expected, and silently took hold of her hand as they walked out of the pub together.

Kate allowed herself a sideways glance at him as they walked in near silence the short distant back to Baker Street. 'What?' he asked finally with a smile.

'You, me, this.'

'Exactly,' he said enigmatically.


	5. Chapter 5

The following afternoon, Kate persuaded a reluctant Sherlock to go for a walk with her up on the Heath.

'But I don't want to go for a walk. Why can't we just stay here?'

'Because if we stay here we'll get distracted, and we won't talk,' she laughed at him. He looked like a grumpy child. ' And there are things that I need you to know if this is going to work,' she said. 'I can't do this the traditional way, with a constant drip-feed on information, I'm sorry, I just can't. I want us to know the best and the worth about each other - now, today, so that we know if this is going to work.'

He smiled and taking both of her hands in his kissed her, then started kissing down the line of her jaw. 'Won't work, she murmured,' then as he reached her neck, 'that is so unfair.' Reluctantly she pulled away, then her resolve weakening kissed him again, before saying. 'Please, Sherlock, can't we at least try?'

He walked away, frustrated and stood and stared out of the window for several minutes before saying, 'I'm not good at talking about myself, Kate - to anyone.'

'Won't you at least try?' she walked up to him and put her arms around him from behind. He leant back into her slightly - so warm, so trusting, so very, very good.

'You might not like what you find, Kate,' he said.

'I know you, Sherlock Holmes,' she said softly, 'I know who you are inside, and I don't believe that anything that you can say will change that. But I need to know whats happened to you to create all those barriers that you put up against the world. And I need you to know that I'm not as perfect as you seem to think that I am.'

He sighed. 'I know that you're not perfect, Kate,' he said, still looking out of the window, but his arms came up to encircle hers, his hands over hers. 'If you were perfect then you wouldn't be nearly so interesting.'

'Then what are you afraid of?'

'Its complicated,' he said.

'I'm right aren't I? Something happened to you to make you lock everything away, something that you don't want to remember.'

He turned round and looked at her suspiciously, 'How did you know?' he asked slowly. 'I've never told anybody that, I've never even told John.'

Then he looked at her, really looked at her, and saw how she knew. 'Of course, you read people,' he said softly,' from their faces, from their mannerisms, from their actions. Just like I do, but differently.'

'I'm sorry, Sherlock, I didn't mean to pry. Its none of my business, you're right. Its private and I have no right to force you to talk about it.'

He kissed her gently and pulled her in close. 'Trust is not something that comes easily to me,' he said quietly into her hair, 'but I would very, very much like to be able to trust you. I do - trust you. I just don't know whats in that box Kate, and I don't know what will happen if I open it.'

'Demons and monsters?' she asked quietly.

'Something much more destructive - memories,' he said.

'Which is why it would be better done away from here,' she said quietly. 'I have demons too, things that I've done that I'm not proud of, things that have happened to me. But its our scars that make us into the people that we are.'

'Why, Kate?' he asked, pulling back to look at her.

'Why what?'

'Why on earth did you agree to come back here with me last night?'

'Because I couldn't stop myself,' she said simply, 'because I looked at you last night and I saw a man who I could be entirely myself with, and who I thought would do anything, absolutely anything to protect me. I didn't think that I wanted that, not after David, I thought that I wanted to be on my own, but you?' she shook her head, 'You were something entirely different, and I realised that if I walked away I would regret it for the rest of my life.'

'Then don't - walk away,' he whispered, eyes closed.

'I don't intend to,' she said honestly. 'But will you at least try - for me?'

He opened his eyes and looked at her considering, 'For you, yes, I will,' he said.

...

An hour later they were sitting on a bench at the top of the Heath. It was a cold October day, but the sun was shining and the view was glorious.

'So, life stories?' asked Kate.

Sherlock shrugged. 'If you wish.'

He looked at her and smiled. 'Sorry, force of habit. I'm trying to be a pleasant, considerate human being but it doesn't come easy'

In the silence that followed she frowned, then slowly smiled as she worked out what was going on. 'This is your defence mechanism, isn't it? This is what you do. You push people away when they're getting close by putting up the barriers.'

She stared at the side of his face until he met her eyes, then very gently kissed him.

'What are you doing?' he asked with a smile.

'Getting round your defences. Better?'

'Yes,' he grinned at her. 'Much, thanks. Sorry.'

'Do you want to give this a try?'

'Will you go first? I suspect that your childhood might well have been less complicated than mine'.

'Then prepare to be surprised,' Kate said, looking away at the view over the Heath. Somehow it was easier to talk when she didn't have to look at him. 'Okay, I was brought up in Surrey. Both my parents were lawyers, very high flying, both working in the city. Very bright, very driven, very cold. My parents worked long hours, and my sister and I saw a lot of the nanny, and very little of my parents during the week, which suited me just fine. I was a very independent child, which won't surprise you. I spent most of my time with my head in a book. My parents were very competitive, and sent us on an endless round of activities, tennis, dancing, music lessons, you get the general idea. My sister was very sporty, I tried, at least to start with, but I was generally much happier reading my book than I was running around a muddy hockey pitch.'

'I went to a series of very good private schools, and academically I did okay, but to be honest I was never really that interested. Then when I was about fourteen, I began to argue with my parents. I didn't want to do all the activities that they wanted me to do, I wanted to go out with my friends and do my own thing. I resented them trying to micro-timetable my life, so I took back control in the only way I could.'

She glanced at him. His eyes were narrowed as he listened. 'You've worked it out, haven't you?'

'Maybe, but I'm starting to see how this works. I think you need to tell me'

'I stopped eating. I got very thin, my parents got very worried, I started lying about food, hiding it, avoiding it, telling my parents I'd eaten a huge lunch, and school I'd eaten a huge breakfast. Textbook really, and stupid, so stupid' she shook her head. 'Eventually, school and home talked to each other. I got dragged to the GP and then to a Child Psychiatrist and an eating disorder counsellor. Two years of family therapy and a few admissions later, I finally realised that the only person that I was damaging was myself and I turned it around.'

'When was this?' Sherlock asked.

'I was fourteen in 1992, so it must have started then, why?'

He smiled. 'We would have overlapped. I was admitted to a unit in North London with depression when I was sixteen. I'm a year older than you, so you and I were probably in units on the opposite sides of London at the same time.'

'Really?' she considered. 'Thats a little bizarre, but in a strange way I'm pleased. What happened to you?'

He shook his head. 'No, this is your story. Finish your part of it, and then I'll tell you mine.'

She sighed. 'There's not much else to tell really. I was on my third admission and we had a talk from an ex-patient. I really connected with her for some reason. She was very bright, she told us how she had got through Cambridge despite her illness, and was now a journalist and a writer. She told us how anorexia had destroyed her body. She was about the age that we are now, but she was on crutches because she had broken a bone in her hip from osteoporosis. Years of anorexia had left her bones so thin that she was in constant pain, and fractured bones from the most minimal trauma. But she was brave, so brave. She told us that we had a choice. We could be victims, or we could be survivors. She told us that whatever anyone told us, out illness was partly due to the events of our lives to that date, but that we had our whole lives in front of us. We had to decide if we wanted to stay trapped in what had gone before, and remain broken, or to draw a line under our paths and take control of our own futures.'

'I had heard so many talks before, but none of them had ever really reached me. I liked being hungry, I liked being thin, I thought that that gave me power, but she made me see that there was a different way.'

Kate shrugged 'Its odd, isn't it, how one person can change your life in such a short time?'

Sherlock reached for her hand. 'Yes' he said quietly, 'It is.' Looking at him, Kate was almost overwhelmed by the emotion coming from him.

'I thought that box was still locked,' she said.

He shook his head 'Apparently not. What do you feel?'

'What you feel,' she said with a confused smile. 'What you feel about me.'

'Surprised?' he asked

She started to say yes, then changed her mind. 'Actually, no. Nothing about this weekend is normal or usual. We are not normal or usual.'

'You're an empath, Kate,' he said quietly, looking away at the view.

'Thats one way of describing it, yes. How did you know?'

'That first day in A&E when you put my shoulder back in. You told me things about myself that you couldn't possibly know. It was as if you could see past all of my defences. You saw exactly what was inside.'

'Sometimes I get a little carried away.'

'I liked it,' he said simply. 'It was extraordinary to have someone see me for who I was, without judgement, and without sympathy. It felt as if you knew exactly who and what I was, and that you not only accepted it, but that you somehow respected it.'

'Thats exactly how it was,' Kate said, 'But it was more than that. I don't think that I've ever had the experience of connecting so completely with another person, of seeing exactly what they were. I've never felt anything like it'.

He nodded slightly, and they sat in silence for a long while, then finally Sherlock smiled at her. 'This is easier than I thought,' he said. 'So what happened after that, whats the next part of your story?'

'Oh the speaker, Martha, came and found me afterwards. She'd noticed me in the group. We got talking about books and all kinds of things She told me about Cambridge, and asked what I wanted to do after school. I'd always wanted to do medicine, but my parents wanted to do law on the basis that I would earn more, and could wear snappier suits. She told me to stick two fingers up to my parents and do whatever I wanted. We stayed in touch, she came to visit me and lent me books. I sorted myself out, got back to school and eventually got a place to do medicine at Oxford, much to my parents horror.' She smiled. 'When I argued with my parents during sixth form, Martha let me go and live with her for a year to finish my A-levels.'

'What happened to her?'

'How do you know that anything happened?'

'You look sad, and the way you're talking about her implies that she's not someone who is a part of your life anymore.'

'She died. Well to be accurate, she took her own life. Five years ago. The pain from her osteoporosis got too great, and she overdosed on painkillers. She told me what she was going to do. I tried to talk her out of it, but at the end it was a logical decision for her. She asked me not to tell anybody, and I didn't,' she looked at Sherlock.'So I suppose that in a way I was an accomplice'

He shook his head. 'It sounds as if you were just respecting her wishes'

Kate nodded. 'Yes. She had tried everything to control the pain and couldn't. She wasn't depressed, well no more than you would expect for someone in her situation. For her it was just the logical conclusion to her life.'

'Do you miss her?'

'All the time. I never really got on with my parents, although I did go back home for holidays at university. Martha was my touchstone, though. She was like the big sister that I never had, although she was almost old enough to be my mother. She was the person that I phoned when things went wrong with boyfriends, or when I was worried about work or exams. So yes, I miss her, but I understand what she did.'

Kate was very quiet for a long time, looking at the view. Then she turned back towards Sherlock who was contemplating her quietly. 'I think that you're very brave, Kate ' he said finally.

She smiled 'No more than you, I think.'

'I don't think that I'm brave at all. I put myself in danger because I don't care what happens to me, and because I cant bear to lose, but with you its different. You've faced up to what happened in your life in a way that I never could.'

'Its never too late,' she said lightly.

Somehow he had ended up with his arms around her, her head resting on his chest. She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the closeness. 'I could sit here all day'.

'It might take all day' he said. 'My turn?'

'If you want.'

He sighed. 'I grew up in North London, big house, rich parents. My father was a very successful business man, from an old family; minor aristocracy a few generations back, family business, old money, very traditional. You can imagine how well I, with all my quirks, was received into that family.'

'My mother was a good old-fashioned society bride. Very beautiful, very superficial. I was brought up mainly by a nanny too, but I adored her, so it worked fine for me. She left when I went to prep school at seven, and after that the servants looked after us in the holidays. My mother by that point was too busy gallivanting around the Europe with her latest lover. She was killed in a car accident in the South of France when I was sixteen.'

'Servants?' Kate asked.

He laughed. 'I told you, Kate, it was an old-fashioned house, with old money. We didn't have a scullery maid and a butler, but we had a housekeeper and a cook and a gardener, and several other employees who made my parents lives easier.'

'I effectively grew up as an only child. My brother, Mycroft is seven years older than me. I remember very little of him when I was small; he was away at school, although I suppose he must have come back for holidays. By the time I was at prep school he had gone on to public school. I was always his annoying little brother, who said the wrong things at the wrong times, and could always be relied on to unsettle and insult people,' he looked at Kate 'I haven't changed much have I?'

She smiled 'I don't see you like that. Go on.'

'So, my parents thoroughly disapproved of me, they sent me away to school as soon as they could, hoping that that would beat some manners into me.'

'Did it?'

'No. Strangely I thrived at prep school,' he looked at her. 'Its very 'Lord of the Flies' there Kate. Its all about survival of the fittest. I wasn't good at sport, but I was very clever, and when you can do the other boys Latin and maths homework for them in record time, and get away with sneaking out after lights out and playing practical jokes on the masters then you can become very popular. I had friends at prep school, not many, but some. Boys that I enjoyed spending time with, and who thought my quirks made me interesting not odd. Children are very accepting.'

'So what happened?' Kate asked 'Because when I look at you I see so much hurt walled up in there. At some point in your childhood something awful happened, didn't it?'

He looked away and nodded. 'When I came back from prep school after the first term, my father called me into his study. My report apparently said that I was very bright but didn't apply myself, and that wherever there was trouble I was usually to be found not far behind. My father lost his temper, and he beat me for the first time. The first beating of many. He only got more violent as I got more older, and he stopped taking me to the study. There was an outbuilding behind the house where he was less likely to be interrupted'

Kate nodded, keeping her features composed 'That fits' she said quietly, 'how long did it go on for?'

'Until I became strong enough to wrestle the riding crop out of his hand and run away' he said bitterly, 'although even that wasn't enough to stop him trying. The last time he beat me was when I was sixteen. Three months later he had a massive stroke and ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It felt like retribution. '

'Nine years?' Kate asked, looking at him. 'He did that to you for nine years and you never told anyone?'

He shrugged 'I tried, they didn't believe me. After a while I stopped trying'

'And thats when you stopped trusting people.'

He looked at her and contemplated for a minute. 'Maybe. I've never really thought about it like that. I don't think that I've ever found it easy to trust or understand people, Kate. My mind just isn't wired like other people's. I find it extremely difficult to work out what other people are feeling, or to know what impact I will have on them. I tried to guess for a while, and eventually I just gave up trying. It was easier not to care, and to do and say what I wanted than it was to constantly feel as if I was failing.'

He blinked, surprised at his own insight.

'You don't talk about this much, do you.'

'Never' he said briefly.

'Maybe if you did you would be able to understand yourself better.'

'Maybe I don't want to' he said. Kate looked at him, the shutters were definitely down.

'Its all part of the box, Sherlock' she said gently. 'I'm not sure that you can open and close that box at will. You cant let out some emotions and not others. Once its open, I think that it all has to come out, and that might not be easy.'

He looked thoughtful, then leapt up. 'Coffee?' he asked.

'Are you changing the subject?' asked Kate

'Yes. Do you mind?'

'You really, really don't like talking about this stuff, do you?'

'No,' he drew her close for a movement, then pulled back to look at her. 'I'm trying Kate, but this isn't easy for me. I have talked to you more in the last,' he looked at his watch, 'nineteen hours' than I have ever talked to anyone in my life. I will talk about it, but I do't think I can do it all in one afternoon. Is that okay?'

Kate looked at him, so earnest, so serious and kissed him gently. 'Yes, thats fine' she said.

...

They walked down the hill to the cafe, and sat with their coffees in a corner seat, looking out at the Heath.

'Tell me about David,' he said gently.

'Whatever happened to not all in one afternoon?'

'I've told you the worst things about my life, but I don't think that you've yet told me everything that you need to about yours, not yet.'

Kate sighed 'I met David a little over four years ago. He was a city banker, the brother of an old university friend. We'd met briefly at university, and then I met him again at her wedding. He asked me out to dinner, and that was pretty much it. He was charming, rich, had a good job, nice flat, it seemed perfect. He bought me extravagant gifts and took me on nice holidays, and I thought why not? I moved with him after four or five months, and then things started to get less pleasant.'

'He was extremely jealous. He didn't like me seeing my male friends, later he didn't like me seeing any friends. He was very protective of his time with me. He worked long hours, and I learnt to organise my social life around his business trips and the nights when he was going to be working late. Just over two years ago I got pregnant. By that time I already knew that things weren't right, and I was trying to work out a way to leave, but I was scared. I knew that he wouldn't let me go easily. He had a temper that I'd learnt to avoid by complying with whatever he asked of me, and I knew that he had the capacity to be violent. He'd had some near misses when he'd attacked people on nights out after a few drinks. Mostly he got off by paying them off'

Sherlock was very quiet watching her face ' I know what you're thinking. I should have just walked away, early on, when I realised what he was, but it wasn't that easy'

'Did you love him?'

'I suppose I must have done, at least initially. Its hard to remember now. When I think of him I just feel anger, and repulsion, at him, at myself for being so stupid.' She paused 'I never thought of myself as a victim until then. I always thought that I was strong, but suddenly it wasn't that simple'

'What happened with the baby?'

'My first instinct when I found that I was pregnant was to have an abortion. I didn't want a child, certainly not with David. He realised that I must be pregnant while I was still deciding if and how to tell him. He was, surprisingly, delighted. I think that he saw it as a sign of his virility or something equally ridiculous, and he liked the idea of having a wife and a child installed in a nice little country pad somewhere. He changed, he became caring, attentive, suddenly nothing was too much trouble.'

'For the first four months or so everything was fine. He wanted me to give up work almost as soon as the blue line on the pregnancy test showed up, but I refused. I told him that I would take things easy at work, and stop work at thirty four weeks. I lied.'

She stopped, unable to continue, her eyes filling with tears. Sherlock reached across the table and took her hand. 'Kate, if this is too hard...'

'No,' angrily she brushed the tears off her cheeks with her hand. 'I want to tell you. I need to tell you.' She took a deep breath, and started talking fast, as if somehow this would make the telling easier. 'I caught measles from a child when I was nineteen weeks pregnant, and had a late miscarriage. They still call it a miscarriage, but thats not what it felt like. It felt like having a dead baby. David was furious. He tried to hide it from me, but as soon as I got home he went mad, shouting that I'd killed his child, pushing me around the flat, hitting me. I was terrified.'

'So you locked yourself in the bathroom and called Alice, who called the police,' Sherlock finished, for her. 'Oh Kate, I'm so very, very sorry.'

'You remembered.'

'Of course. I remember everything. And then he was arrested.'

'Yes, and charged. They gave him a suspended sentence and a restraining order. No custodial sentence because despite everything my injuries were minor.'

'So you lost your partner and the baby all at the same time'

Kate shook her head. 'No, it wasn't like that,' she shut her eyes tight, unable to look at him. 'I was glad, Sherlock. Glad that I lost the baby, and glad that David was out of my life. All I felt was relief that I was out of that situation, and then I felt guilt for the relief, and self-revolt for the guilt.'

'And now?'

She looked up. He was looking at her as if she had just read out the football scores.

'You don't seem particularly bothered by what I've just told you.'

'This is about emotion again isn't it? He rubbed his head as if trying to work out what he should be feeling. 'I'm sorry Kate, I told you, I don't do that very well. I'm sorry that you had to go through that, of course. But I wasn't there, and I find it difficult to imagine what it would have been like for you.' He frowned, as if this was a problem that he could find a logical solution to.

'What I think you really want to know is do I think less of you for feeling relief that you were no longer pregnant with a baby that you didn't want, or that an abusive partner was out of your life? No, of course not, it was a logical reaction. Am I angry at David for not realising how extraordinary you are, and for treating you, or any woman, like his property,? Yes of course, I'm furious, and if you tell me where he is then I am quite happy to ensure that he is made aware of exactly how inappropriate his behavior was, although I suspect that that is the last thing that you would want.'

Kate looked at him, puzzled. 'You really are the strangest man, Sherlock Holmes. I was worried that you would somehow think less of me for getting involved with a man like that, and worse still for staying him, for being so callous about losing a child, and yet you're still looking at me as if...'

'As if you are the most extraordinary person I have ever met? Yes, exactly. I'm not judging you Kate, because it isn't my role to judge you. I think that you have been through enough.'

'Thank you,' she whispered.

They sat in silence for a long time, then Sherlock said suddenly. 'For what its worth, you can trust me, Kate. You can trust me to not be a man like David.'

'I know that,' Kate said.

But the question is, do you believe it?' he asked quietly, looking at her in such a way that she found it impossible to look away.

'You are nothing like David,' she told him, then sighed. 'I don't think that trust is something that comes easily for either of us, but I want to be here, with you, and I don't believe that you are going to try to control my life. Thats probably a good start.'

'For both of us,' he said. 'So where is David now?'

'In Hong Kong, with the bank. They sensed a potential scandal and decided to relocate him to prevent any further damage.'

'I think,' said Sherlock eventually. 'That this has been harder for you than it has for me.

'Because of the emotion thing?' Kate said with a sarcastic smile. Sherlock tried not to wince at her grammar. Leaning forward she whispered. 'You know it is surprisingly easy to wind you up by saying slightly the wrong thing.'

He smiled, then very softly said, 'Can we go home now, please?'

Kate nodded. 'You never used to talk about the flat as home, you know. You used to call it the flat, or Baker Street.'

He nodded. 'Yes, I noticed that too.'

...

Later that evening, they were sitting in the kitchen at 221B, sharing a takeway and a bottle of wine when Sherlock looked at his watch.

'Its 9.30 Kate, he said softly. 'Twenty four hours.'

'So it is,' Kate said softly.

'So have you made a decision?'

Kate stood up, walked over to him and very gently kissed him. 'I think,' she said very softly, 'That I'll keep you, if you don't mind.'

His response made it very clear that he didn't mind at all.


	6. Chapter 6

Complications

Friday night, and they were being shown to their table in the restaurant when Sherlock hesitated slightly, his gaze resting for a split second on the occupants of a table in the corner of the restaurant. 'Mycroft,' he murmured, then with a sigh, 'Too late.'

Kate followed his gaze to where six sharply dressed men were sitting. She wouldn't have picked out Mycroft Holmes from the family resemblance, but the hawk-like stare was obviously a family trait. He nodded at her and beckoned Sherlock over with an imperious finger, but Sherlock just gave him a disdainful look and shook his head as he continued to follow the Maitre d' to their table.

Once seated he retreated behind his menu. 'Is he watching us?' he asked, having deliberately seated himself with his back to where Mycroft was seated.

'Yes,' Kate murmured from behind her own menu. 'Why does it bother you so much?'

'You'll see.'

'He was bound to find out eventually,' Kate said with a frown, wondering irrationally if Sherlock had another reason for trying to conceal their relationship. Was he - ashamed of her? Unsure of his brother's reaction? She was struggling to find a way to phrase the question when Sherlock gave an explanation of his own.

'Mycroft can't resist meddling,' he said, shutting his menu with a snap. 'I'm not hungry. Lets get this over with and then get out of here.'

'Get what over with?' Kate started to say and then realised that Mycroft Holmes was standing up and walking across the restaurant towards them.

'How did you...' she started to say, but Sherlock interrupted her.

'You really don't notice things, do you. They were already on coffee and port when we walked in. They're going on somewhere, hence the early dinner.' He dropped his voice to a murmur as Mycroft Holmes came over to the table.

'Mycroft,' he said, in acknowledgement, pretending to study his menu again, without looking at his brother.

'Sherlock.' Mycroft said by way or reply. 'What a fortunate coincidence. I've been trying to contact you.'

'I've been busy,' Sherlock said, looking up at his brother with barely concealed anger. Were they always like this, Kate wondered?

'So I can see,' Mycroft replied, switching his attention to Kate. 'I don't think that we've met,' he said, 'and as my brother's manners seem to have failed him, not for the first time I'm afraid, we'll have to make the introduction ourselves. Mycroft Holmes.'

'Kate Watson,' Kate replied cooly, determined not to let this man rattle her, although there was something about Mycroft Holmes that she couldn't quite put her finger on. When she had met Sherlock she had found him difficult to interpret, but underneath it all she had known that he was intrinsically a good man. With Mycroft she wasn't so sure. There was a hardness in his eyes that she had come across before. This was a man who would stop at nothing. A man who was used to being obeyed, and who would not hesitate to order deaths if deaths were required. Sherlock had told her that his brother worked for the government, but in which capacity, Kate had only just fully appreciated.

Mycroft narrowed his eyes slightly. 'But not related to John.' It was a statement, not a question. How on earth had he known that? People frequently made that mistake when they had both worked in the A&E, assuming that they must be related.

'No,' she said, 'at least not that we're aware of.'

'But then its not an uncommon surname,' Mycroft was saying politely. 'I imagine that you've worked together, though, given that you're both in the same profession.'

Kate tried not to let her surprise at this deduction show on her face. She never told people that she was a doctor if she could help it, so how had he known?'

'Plaster of paris on your left shoe,' Sherlock murmured, 'well deduced Mycroft.'

'And you're not wearing a watch,' Mycroft added, 'or did you miss that one, Sherlock.' There was a taunting edge to his tone that Kate didn't like. She knew that Sherlock didn't need protecting, but Mycroft's attempt to put him down in front of her were - uncomfortable and unpleasant, and did nothing to improve her opinion of Mycroft Holmes.

'I could be a nurse,' Kate said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.

'But you're not,' Mycroft said, 'obviously.'

'Obviously.' Kate repeated, then, almost to herself, 'Charades must have been over very, very quickly in your house. Its nice to meet you, Mycroft. Did you have a pleasant dinner?'

'Yes, thank you,' Mycroft said, looking slightly perplexed at his inability to rattle her. 'I can recommend the salmon.'

'You're going to be late for the start of the concert if you don't hurry,' Sherlock said with a tight smile at his brother.

'Oh they'll wait for us,' Mycroft said. 'Did you get the documents that I sent you?'

'Yes,' Sherlock replied.

'And?'

'And I'm not interested.'

'Then I suggest that you become - interested,' Mycroft said.

'I don't work for you, Mycroft,' Sherlock said.

'Fortunately not,' Mycroft replied, 'but still.'

'I'll have a look,' Sherlock said tightly. 'Now was there anything else?'

'Not if you promise to answer my phone call on Monday morning, no.

Sherlock gave an almost imperceptible nod, and there was an uncomfortable silence, which Mycroft finally broke, 'Well, then I'll leave you to your evening, 'he said, before turning to Kate, 'A pleasure meeting you, Dr Watson,' he said, 'although I do hope that you appreciate what you're letting yourself in for.'

Kate shook his hand, but decided that silence was the best policy. Sherlock watched Mycroft until he was safely out of the door, then took out his wallet, threw a twenty pound note onto the table and stood up to go, handing Kate the card that Mycroft had somehow managed to leave next to her wine glass without her noticing. 'Please call,' it said in beautiful black italics, 'I have some information that you should have possession of.'

'Sherlock...' Kate said with a sigh.

'You can stay if you wish,' he said.

'Don't be ridiculous,' she told him, following him towards the door with an apologetic smile at the confused looking waiter who was coming towards them.

...

Once outside, Sherlock handed her her coat, which he had rescued from the rack by the door on his way past. He looked, Kate thought, as if he had his own personal storm cloud over his head, and she decided to leave him to his thoughts, until they reached the river, where he stood, hands grasping the iron railings, knuckles almost white with the strength of his grip. Silently she wrapped her arms around him from behind, resting her cheek against the rough cloth of his coat. 'I'm sorry,' she said quietly. Then when he remained silent she stepped away and said, 'Look if you want me to go -'

He turned and looked at her in confusion, 'What? No of course I don't want you to go, don't be ridiculous. Why would I want you to go?'

'I just thought - never mind.'

'This is about emotion again, isn't it?' he said, looking at her. Then turning to face the river again, he said with a sigh, 'Better just to explain it to me, Kate, I'm not in the mood for guessing games.' He sounded weary now, not angry, not with her at any rate.

She shook her head, 'It sounds ridiculous when I even think about saying it.'

'Kate,' he said warningly. Even after three weeks together she knew that he hated it when he couldn't work out what she was thinking. Cognitive empathy definitely wasn't his strong point.

'A less logical person,' Kate said, coming to stand next to him at the rails and staring across the dark river at the boats on the far bank, 'Might have interpreted your anger at your brother seeing us together as an indication that you would rather not be seen with me. That he might disapprove.'

Sherlock looked at her in confusion, then chuckled, and when Kate turned to look at him threw back his head and laughed, before gently disentangling her hands from the railings, and taking her in his arms, holding her tight. Suddenly Kate felt all of her anxiety disappear. 'For an intelligent person, you can be remarkably stupid sometimes,' he said into the top of her head, lips on her hair.

'Pot, kettle,' Kate said into his chest, relishing the warmth and the feeling of his arms around her. 'I thought that you were fed up with me.'

'The opposite, in fact,' he said. 'I don't want Mycroft ruining this, and he will, Kate, he ruins everything that he touches. I don't want him anywhere near you because he will persuade you with that silken tongue of his that black is white and that you and I should not continue. I don't want this to end. Thats why I'm angry - with Mycroft, not with you.'

'Idiot,' Kate said puling back to look at him. 'Come on, I'm taking you for dinner.'

'Where?'

'My choice,' Kate said, 'Somewhere that I guarantee that we're not going to bump into Mycroft or anyone else that you know,' she said, pulling him towards a noodle bar down the river, where despite his initial protestations Sherlock was forced to admit that the food was good, although Kate wasn't sure that she'd ever turn him into a lager drinker.

...

Walking back along the river towards Baker Street, Kate asked, 'Tell me about Mycroft.'

'What do you want to know?'

'Why do you assume that he'll interfere? Isn't it possible that he'll just be happy for you.'

'Because Mycroft for some strange reason feels responsible for me, and persists in believing that he knows whats best for me. When I first met John and arranged to share a flat with him he had him picked up off the street by his assistant, whisked away to a very cliched warehouse and tried to warn him to stay away from me.'

Kate laughed and then looking at his expression said, 'You're not serious. Why?'

'Because he can't stop interfering, I told you.'

'So what - I can expect to be whisked off to a dark warehouse and interrogated? I don't have any deep, dark secrets, Sherlock, not ones that you don't already know so realistically what can he do?'

Sherlock shook his head and squeezed her hand tighter. 'I don't even like to think,' he said, 'but I would bet you any sum of money that he is having you investigated even as we speak.'

'I have nothing to hide,' Kate said simply, 'and there is nothing that he could tell me about you that would change the way that I feel about you, so let him try. I'm not afraid of Mycroft, Sherlock.'

'You should be,' he murmured, then suddenly and with a mercurial change of mood, headed towards the road. 'Lets get a cab back. I don't like the feeling that Mycroft's watching. Not tonight.'


	7. Chapter 7

It was still dark when Kate woke to find that Sherlock was no longer in the bed beside her. Pulling on Sherlock's dressing gown as she went, she stumbled out of the bedroom, squinting against the light in the living room.

Sherlock was sitting at his desk, tapping furiously at his laptop. Kate idly wondered what his typing speed was, faster than hers certainly, those beautiful, long fingers almost a blur as he typed, then hovering over the keys as he paused to consider the information on the screen, then typed again, one website after another. She had been standing in the doorway watching him for a good five minutes before he realised that she was there. 'I didn't mean to wake you,' he said, without a pause in his typing.

'What are you doing?' she asked, walking over and pulling up a chair.

'Seeing how far Mycroft's got in his investigation,' Sherlock said, scrolling down a page that Kate realised in horror had her name at the top of it.

'Thats my occupational health records,' she said, 'How on earth did you get into those?'

'The same way that Mycroft did,' Sherlock replied calmly, 'with a combination of top security clearance, mine obtained illegally from Mycroft obviously, and a little bit of hacking.'

'Mycroft's read those?'

'Not personally, one of his minions I would imagine, but I would be surprised if anyone from the hospital has been accessing them for legitimate reasons at 1am.'

'But they're confidential,' Kate said stupidly, still half asleep and wondering if this was some strange dream.

'Mycroft will stop at nothing, Kate, I told you.'

'What else has he looked at?' she asked, not sure if she wanted to know.

'Medical records, bank statements, GMC records, police reports from the incident with David, his Magistrates Court records, do you want me to go on?'

'Not really,' Kate said faintly, head suddenly swimming.

Sherlock remained, straight back, still tapping the keys, until Kate slammed the lid of the lap top down in frustration. 'Will you stop that?' she said, with more force than she had intended.

Sherlock remained, hands suspended inches above where the keys had been only seconds before. 'I warned you, Kate,' he said, without looking at her.

Kate shook her head, trying not to cry. Didn't he care about the impact that this was having on her? How could he be so cold, so mechanical, when his brother had just exposed her entire life. She had said that she didn't care, but she was wrong. She felt defiled somehow, she didn't want anyone knowing that much detail about her life, especially about David, and the baby and how miserable she had been afterwards, but it was all there in her occupational health records and her medical records, she knew, and now Mycroft Holmes knew it all. She buried her heads in her hands, and gave up on her attempt to hold it together. Then gentle hands were on her shoulders, turning the chair round and pulling her into Sherlock's arms as he knelt down on the floor next to her.

'I'm sorry,' he murmured, 'I'm so very sorry Kate, I thought that you would want to know.'

'Why would he do this?' she whispered.

He held her tighter, stroking her hair, 'Ammunition, Kate,' he said calmly, 'he'll use it to work out how best to persuade you that your life would be better without me in it.'

'Why not the other way round?'

'Because he knows me too well. He knows that if I've made up my mind then nothing that he or anyone else can say will alter that. You, on the other hand, are a much easier target.'

Kate pulled back and looked at him in horror. 'You honestly think that I'll let him talk me out of this? That I'm that shallow.'

The answer was in his eyes, and in his lips as he kissed her gently, then pulling away shook his head, never for a second taking his eyes off hers, 'I think that he will leave you little choice, Kate, and that is exactly what I am afraid of.'

She kissed him fiercely, and words failing her for one of the few times in her life, found other ways of showing him how desperately she wanted to hold onto him.

...

The weekend was tinged with sadness. Mycroft had somehow tainted their happiness, bringing reality crashing into their world, and Kate found doubt creeping in despite everything. The questions that she had been trying to ignore began whispering in the corner of her head. Where was the future for her and Sherlock, and what else didn't she know about his past. If his brother was so against Sherlock being in a relationship with her then maybe, just maybe there was a good reason for it. What did he know that could change how she felt about Sherlock? She found her fingers going almost against her will to Mycroft's card, stuffed angrily into her coat pocket that evening by the river and wondered what would happen if she phoned the number on it. A confrontation with Mycroft seemed inevitable now, if he was all that Sherlock said that he was, it was unlikely that he would fail to seek a meeting with her and maybe, just maybe it would be better for that meeting to be within her control.

'Don't Kate,' Sherlock said softly as they were walking on Parliament Hill on Sunday afternoon.

'Don't what?'

'Don't seek Mycroft out. He'll come for you soon enough.'

She looked at him sideways, then shook her head, 'I wish that you wouldn't do that.'

'It wasn't hard to work out.'

She squeezed his hand tighter, 'Probably not, but you could at least pretend that you don't know whats going on inside my head, and ask me rather than telling me.'

He gave her a confused look, 'What would be the point in that?'

She smiled at his bemusement and kissed him on the cheek, 'Never mind,' she said. 'I know that I'll never change you.'

'Would you want to?'

She considered his profile, tall and straight-backed with the whole of London at his feet. 'Never,' she said simply. 'I never want to change you, even if I thought that I could.'

'Remember that,' he said sadly, before taking her hand and walking with her down the hill, 'the storm is coming, Kate, and I'm not sure that it will leave any of us untouched.'

It was an almost perfect day in the end, their boots crunching through the leaves on the ground, winter was definitely on the way, and yet they still bypassed the cafe where they usually stopped for coffee or hot chocolate, both unspeakingly knowing that the other would rather retreat behind the safe walls of Baker Street. And if Kate noticed that Sherlock spent more time than normal checking the security cameras for signs that they had been hacked, or if Sherlock noticed that Kate was more subdued than normal, then neither of them chose to mention it.

And when Alice texted later to see if they wanted to join her some other friends in the pub, it was by an unspoken agreement that they declined, and spent the evening instead curled up together on the sofa, pretending that the gas fire was a real log fire, watching old films and trying not to think about what the week ahead might bring.


	8. Chapter 8

Sherlock walked Kate to work on Monday morning, watching her walk inside the A&E doors as if he was afraid that Mycroft might turn up even there. Kate spent all day jumping at shadows, wondering if every patient was a spy for Mycroft until finally over a snatched sandwich at lunchtime she decided that she was probably being ridiculous, and she needed to remember that she wasn't living inside the pages of a 1970's spy novel.

It was only when she walked out of the Department that evening to find Sherlock waiting for her on the bench just outside the doors, that she remembered that he had promised to phone Mycroft that morning.

'Did you talk to him?' she asked, as he got up and started walking as soon as she reached his side.

'I was left with little option.'

'Did he turn up at the the flat?'

'At the lab. He's got a case for me.'

'Just a case?'

Sherlock said calmly, 'If you mean did he try to interrogate me about you, of course he did. I told him that it was none of his business.'

'Were you that polite?'

Sherlock considered, 'Not exactly,' he said.

'You couldn't have just told him that we were friends who happened to be going out to dinner together.'

'No because he wouldn't have believed me. Mycroft may be many things, but he's not stupid.'

'So what happens next?'

Sherlock sighed, 'I investigate his case for him, and you try to avoid letting him whisk you off in his car.'

'Or we could just invite him round for dinner.'

'I don't think so,' Sherlock said distractedly.

Kate sighed, his mind was obviously on other things. 'So tell me about the case,' she said.

'One of the GCHQ analysts has gone missing. Mycroft wants me to help track him down.'

'Because he doesn't have enough staff of his own to do that?'

'Because he thinks that it might be an inside job.'

'Oh.' Kate frowned. 'Does he ask you to do things like this often.'

'From time to time, yes.'

Kate wanted to ask if he paid Sherlock for his services, but money was something that Sherlock simply never talked about, so instead she asked. 'If its GCHQ related, then I presume that I can't help.'

'Mycroft's had you screened,' Sherlock murmured, frowning over whatever parallel problem his mind was working on. 'He may not be happy for us to continue in a relationship, but he doesn't think that you're going to go leaking any state secrets. Of course in theory he should get you to sign the official secrets act, but -'

'I've already signed it,' Kate said, quietly.

'So it would appear.'

'I can't talk about it,' she told him, suspecting that he knew already. 'It was to do with work, a few years back.'

'Which is convenient, to say the least,' Sherlock said, glancing over her, then frowning slightly.

'What,' Kate asked grinning at his expression.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her into a convenient alley-way between two of the terraced houses in the area, out of public view then bent his head to hers and kissed her.

'Hullo,' Kate murmured into his shoulder, several minutes later, as he pulled her into a hug.

She could feel him smiling where his cheek was resting against the top of her head. 'Sorry,' he said, 'I got distracted.'

She kissed him again, before saying, 'Mycroft would probably call this the distraction.'

'Mycroft needs to get his prioirities straight,' Sherlock muttered under his breath.

'Does he have anyone, Mycroft I mean,' Kate asked, as they continued their walk, then, 'Where are we going out of interest.'

'The lab, unless you've got any objections, and no, not as far as I'm aware.'

'The lab's fine,' Kate told him, and then frowning, 'what about in the past, he must have had relationships, surely,' although with who and of what kind she was struggling to imagine.'

'I imagine so, he's teased me often enough about my presumed celibacy, but he's always kept whatever relationships he has - discrete, the only one that I'm aware of is the one he had at college, and that was only because I met the other party independently. He's certainly never introduced me to anyone as his partner, but then we don't exactly socialise together on a regular basis.'

'What about family things - Christmas, birthdays.'

Sherlock silently raised an amused eyebrow at her, his lips twitching into a smile.

'You don't celebrate birthdays?' Kate asked.

'Not each others no, not that I'd remember anyway. Christmas - not so much. Its generally acknowledged in some way, if only for the frustration of the rest of the country shutting down for several days and interrupting work, but its been a long time since we argued about who got which part of the turkey.'

Kate squeezed his hand a little tighter. 'Do you mind?' she asked quietly.

'Not at all,' Sherlock said, 'from what I've seen Christmases are generally a time when people with very different priorities come together and pretend that they like each other because they happen to be related. This generally seems to end in arguments and unhappiness all round.'

'Are you and Mycroft really so different,' Kate asked, trying to avoid the realisation that he'd just summed up Christmases with her family perfectly, and trying hard not to imagine the impact that it would have if she took Sherlock back to Surrey or her sister's house in Wales to join the festivities. Sherlock belonged safely in London, at home in the jostling streets, not under the scrutiny of her overly critical father and her mother who took Nancy Mitford as her handbook, entirely missing the irony. She would be impressed by Sherlock's appearance in Debrett's, but other than that...

'It would be a disaster,' Sherlock murmured into her ear as he leaned in close, and then pulling away and speaking in a normal voice, 'and yes, we are.'

Parallel conversations were one of Sherlock's many skills that Kate was still struggling to cope with. 'Why do you do that?' she asked.

'You started it,' he said, 'talking about one thing and thinking about another.'

'How on earth could you know what I was thinking?' Kate asked exasperated.

He smiled, 'Its a logical cognitive sequence, Kate. You asked about my family Christmases, which would naturally lead you to recall yours, and I would very much hope, to wonder where and how I might fit into those. People seem to want those that they care about around them at that time of year, and I would imagine that I would be one of those people. What interestingly you haven't considered, is whether or not I would still be a part of your life by Christmas, a fact that I find gratifying.'

'Are you sure that you can't read minds,' Kate muttered darkly, trying to stay cross with him, but smiling and shaking her heads none the less. 'You really are infuriating you know,' she said, giving him a mock punch in the ribs.

Sherlock caught her hand, and the click of a camera caught them laughing at each other as Sherlock leaned in for another kiss.

Sherlock reacted before Kate had had time to realise what was happening, seizing the camera from the man on the motorbike and twisting it out of his hand, then when he tried to repossess it, holding him against the wall calmly with one arm across his throat,, while twisting his body away for a clear view of the camera, he calmly removed the memory card with the other hand, pocketed it and then tossed the camera back to the man as he released him.

'And tell my brother that next time I'll break the camera too,' he told him cooly as the man put on his helmet and sped away through the traffic.

Kate was surprised to discover that she found this display of violence reassuring. Unlike David, he took no pleasure in it. Every movement was controlled, carefully designed to ensure the minimum of force to achieve the desired outcome. Sherlock had grabbed her hand again and was walking so fast she had to practically run to keep up.

'He's never going to give up is he?' she asked quietly.

'Its irrelevant,' Sherlock told her. 'I should probably have ignored him. Reacting to Mycroft tends to just make him worse - I'm proving that he's getting to me.'

'So why didn't you - ignore him I mean.'

'Because I lost my temper,' Sherlock admitted finally, reluctantly.

'Emotion over intellect?' Kate asked with a smile, 'I never thought I'd see the day.'

Sherlock gave her a withering look as they walked through the doors of St Barts towards the lab. It was deserted, Molly having already gone home for the day. One work-bench was set up as a desk, covered in a laptop and pieces of paper. Sherlock headed straight back to his microscope, checked a timer and slid a microscope slide onto the footplate.

Kate watched him work, fascinated by his focus as always. If only she found it so easy to switch off the outside world, and concentrate solely on one thing. 'What do you want me to do?' she asked, with little hope of a reply Then when she got no answer, went to make tea, realising that it could be several hours before he acknowledged her presence again. Leaving his tea next to him, where he picked it up and started drinking it absently, she headed over to the workbench and started reading through the file. She might as well make herself useful until Sherlock was capable of conversation again, and familiarising herself with the data seemed as good a place to start as any.


	9. Chapter 9

John walked into the lab several hours later, dropping his suitcase at the door and with a face like thunder. Sherlock didn't even look up from his work at the lab bench.

'Mycroft?' Kate asked.

'You've been spending too long with him,' John muttered, looking pointedly at Sherlock's oblivious head. 'Yes, Mycroft arrived at the airport and offered, no insisted on giving me a lift back to London in the back of his lovely car, and interrogating me about you the whole way back. He's just returned from the Middle East apparently, so just happened to be in the airport at the time that my plane landed.'

'Sorry,' Kate said, pulling a face, 'I should have realised that he'd get to you too.'

'Whats going on, Kate?' John asked.

'Come into the coffee room, and I'll tell you,' Kate said with a sigh, realising that Sherlock wasn't going to be joining in this conversation any time soon.

...

'Mycroft saw me and Sherlock in a restaurant together on Friday night,' Kate told him as soon as the door had shut behind them.

'Ah,' John said. 'And I take it that he's not best please about this.'

'Apparently not. He's been investigating me, John. He's gone into everything - not just the obvious stuff, my medical records, even my occupational health records, and this evening there was a guy on a motorbike taking photos of us, its ridiculous!'

'What does Sherlock say?'

'He seems to think that Mycroft is going to kidnap me and whisk me off in his car of doom, then brainwash me into breaking up with Sherlock.'

John pulled a face, and then said, 'Kate, how much has Sherlock told you about Mycroft?'

'Quite a bit - why?'

'Those two -' John sighed, then sat down on one of the chairs arranged around the outside of the room. 'They have the strangest relationship. Mycroft can't leave Sherlock alone, its as if he feels responsible for him somehow, but he just can't stop interfering. I think it all stems from the fact that Mycroft was Sherlock's guardian after their parents died, you know that he's seven years older?'

Kate nodded, 'But Sherlock's a grown man, surely Mycroft realises that.'

John sighed, 'You know Sherlock, Kate. He's not always the most - rational person, whatever he may think. And he hasn't always acted in the most sensible way, I don't think. When things go wrong he relies on Mycroft to provide a get out of jail free card, to sort things out for him, so its understandable that Mycroft wants to pre-empt any problems.'

'And is that what I am? A problem?'

Kate sounded curious, John thought, rather than concerned. 'To Mycroft, yes, potentially. Kate you have to understand that in the five years that I've known Sherlock he's never had anything approximating a relationship, or ever even referred to one in the past. Of course Mycroft's worried, wouldn't you be in his position?'

'So what would you do?'

'I would meet with Mycroft,' John said slowly and carefully.

'Seriously?' Kate asked, 'But Sherlock said..'

'Sherlock is wrong.' John said firmly. 'He does get paranoid about things at times, Kate, you must have realised that. And he always paints Mycroft as the bad guy.'

'And he isn't?'

John sighed again, 'He's not a pantomime villain, no. He's just concerned.'

'And you think that if he met me..'

'And realised that you're a sensible, stable individual who cares deeply for Sherlock then he'd be reassured, yes I'm fairly sure that he would.'

'Sherlock would never agree.'

'No, he wouldn't.' John looked at Kate in a way that said everything.

She stared at him for several minutes, taking in what he was saying, then finally shook her head. 'I couldn't, John, not without telling him.'

'Even if it was for the best?'

'I couldn't lie to him, I won't lie to him. Trust is just so important to him, seeing Mycroft behind his back would feel - underhand, thats no way to start a relationship.'

'You really love him, don't you,' John said, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.

'Of course.'

'Then good luck to you Kate, but I warn you, Mycroft won't give in without a fight.'

'What did he say to you in the car?'

'Very little, it was more of an interrogation really. He wanted to know everything that I knew about you - when I'd met you, what I thought of you professionally, what I knew about your past relationships, how you'd met Sherlock, what I thought of your relationship, why I thought that you were with him - everything.'

Kate groaned and buried her head in her hands for a minute. 'What did you say?' she asked, without looking up.

'I gave him my honest opinion, there seemed no reason not to. Do you mind?'

'Not if it was good, no.' She said, looking up at him with a grin.

'Of course it was good. I told him that I thought that you were a fantastic doctor, caring, compassionate, but with enough bite to stand up to the punters when you had to. I told him that I'd never seen Sherlock happier or more stable.'

'Did he believe you?'

'Hard to tell with Mycroft, but he'll still want to talk to you. In fact he asked me to try to persuade you to contact him.'

'And is that why you tried to do just that?' Kate was aware that she sounded suspicious, despite her best intentions.

'No, of course not!' John said, exasperated. 'I'm giving you my honest opinion, as a friend. The best thing, for you and for Sherlock would be for you to talk to Mycroft before he comes to you. But I get it, Kate, I completely get why you won't do that without discussing it with Sherlock.'

Kate shook her head, 'What a mess,' she said.

'So tell me about the case,' John said finally after they had sat in silence for several minutes.

'Interesting one really. GCHQ analyst, disappeared ten days ago. One day he was at work as normal, the next morning he just never turned up, and he hasn't been seen since. CCTV cameras captured him walking into the tube at Pimlico, then after that - nothing. He just disappeared.'

'No signs that he could have been abducted ?'

'No, nothing. They've checked all of the tube footage for every station in London, nothing.'

'So he left the tube by another way - old fire tunnels, or service tunnels may be?'

'Must have done, but the question is why. There was no history of him acting oddly, nothing seems to have gone from his flat, passport is still there, everything. He literally walked out of his life in just the clothes that he was wearing.'

'So what have you got so far?'

'Come back into the lab with me and I'll show you.' Kate said, relieved to have diverted the topic of conversation away from Mycroft Holmes at last.


	10. Chapter 10

Hope you're all enjoying the rewrite. This chapter comes with thanks to sevenpercent - who suggested that I should add more depth to John's friendship with Sherlock and the extent to which he understands him. The original suggestion was for Madness and Memory, but I'm hoping that it also works here.

* * *

><p>Kate had already phoned halfway down Jamie Drayton's contact list, and John was working on yet another timeline when Sherlock finally looked up from his latest experiment.<p>

'John,' he said, sounding surprised. 'When did you get here?

'About three hours ago, thanks for noticing.'

'Did Kate tell you about the case?'

'The case of the disappearing analyst, or the case of Mycroft Holmes?'

'I imagine that Mycroft filled you in himself. Its a long journey back to Baker Street from here after all. Did he try to get you to persuade Kate to meet him, or let you come up with that idea on your own?'

'How on earth did you know that Mycroft met me at the airport?'

Sherlock allowed himself an amused smile. 'Well, your case is by the door, so you obviously came straight here, plus you just told me that you got here three hours ago. The flight from Prague, where your conference was, got in five hours ago, there's no way that you could have got back here this quickly on public transport, unless of course you got a taxi, which you never would. Even if you had taken a taxi you would have gone back to Baker Street and not come straight here, someone must have told you I was on a case, even Lestrade doesn't know about that one, only Kate, myself and Mycroft. Hence it must have been Mycroft, and the only reason that you would have come straight here would have been if you were pissed off with somebody - in this case Mycroft.'

'So not that hard to work out, okay fine, yes Mycroft had his team meet me off the plane, escort me to his car, and he gave me the Spanish Inquisition all the way home. You could have warned me, Sherlock.'

'Warned you about what?'

'That Mycroft had found out about you and Kate and was likely to come and abduct me.'

'I would have thought that you would have been grateful for the lift.'

'Sherlock, I am never grateful for any prolonged period of time in your brother's company.'

'So what did you tell him? That Kate was a fine and upstanding member of the medical community and that he should keep his pointy little nose out it?'

'Pretty much, yes.'

'And at what point did he ask you to persuade Kate to agree to meet him behind my back?'

'Shortly before we arrived back here.'

Sherlock looked at Kate, holding her gaze for too long, an unanswered question there, uncertain for the first time during that exchange.

'You really think that I would?' she asked him.

He shrugged. 'I wouldn't blame you, Kate, I can imagine that it could appear to be the logical solution.'

'No you don't,' she said softly.

'No, you're right, I don't.' He stared at her again, and then walking to the door, lifted his coat off the peg and walked out of the lab, leaving the door swinging behind him. Kate went to run after him, but John caught her arm, stopping her.

'Let him go, Kate,' he said softly.

'Where's he going?'

'To think, and to escape from a situation where there's more emotion than he's comfortable with.'

'Why?'

'Because he's upset about Mycroft, and unsure of your reaction to Mycroft and he can't deal with it, so he's doing what he always does'

'Walking away?'

'Putting up barriers, yes. Its how he deals with it, better not to try to interfere with those coping mechanisms, I learnt that long ago.'

'Where's he gone?' Kate asked, fighting to control her own complex mix of anger and concern at Sherlock walking out on her.

'He'll walk for five or ten minutes, then find the nearest shop, buy a packet of cigarettes, smoke two, and then come back here, sit down and keep working as if nothing has happened. Thats what he always does.'

'And thats never struck you as an odd way of coping with things?'

John shrugged. 'It works for him,' he says. 'It more adaptive than hitting somebody or breaking something, which I imagine would be the alternative. Its about control, Kate, its always about control for him. Mycroft is attempting to control you, and he's not sure if he's succeeding. He can't ask the question because he's afraid to hear the answer.'

'You understand him very well,' Kate said.

'I've known him for a long time, Kate,' John said. 'Now how about we see how much more of this we can unravel before he gets back?'

...

Half an hour later, Sherlock walked back through the door, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke, but contrary to John's prediction, he didn't sit back at the work bench and start working as if nothing had happened. Instead he walked over to Kate and wordlessly wrapped his arms around her. 'I'm sorry,' he said, quietly.

'Its okay,' Kate told him, 'I would have been pissed off with Mycroft too.'

Sherlock shook his head, 'Thats not the point,' he said. Then to Kate's surprise, 'I've had enough for one night, lets go home. This will wait until the morning.'

'You're going to walk away in the middle of a case?' John asked uncertainly.

'What I should really do is to walk away from it entirely,' Sherlock said, an uncontrolled edge of anger to his voice. 'How dare Mycroft think that he can interfere in my life, while getting me to do his dirty work for him. But the point is that Jamie Drayton is already dead, and his killers aren't likely to strike again soon, so its not exactly time sensitive. It will wait until tomorrow.'

'How on earth do you know that he's dead?' John asked, but Sherlock just shook his head.

'Not tonight,' Sherlock said, 'I'll explain in the morning.'

He walked to the door and silently held Kate's coat out to her. She looked back at John who was still standing by the bench with the computers on it. 'Coming?' she asked.

He shook his head. 'You go ahead, I'm going to wrap a few things up here first. I'll see you tomorrow.'

Sherlock was uncharacteristically quiet in the cab on the way home, but Kate knew better than to try to disturb him when he was in one of these moods. When they arrived back at Baker Street he kissed her fiercely, still silent, until pulling away she said, 'Mycroft has really rattled you, hasn't he?'

'I won't lose you, Kate,' he said quietly, 'and Mycroft won't give up, so where does that leave us?'

'Here,' she said softly, kissing him again, 'together. Just - trust me, Sherlock, I know that doesn't come easily to you, but just trust me to do what is right.'

'I do trust you,' he said softly, 'its Mycroft that I don't trust.


	11. Chapter 11

Correctly, as it turned out. Sherlock walked Kate to work again in the morning, before leaving to investigate possible tube stations where Jamie Drayton could have disappeared with John.

'How do you know that he's dead?' Kate asked.

'Because if he isn't dead he would have turned up on cctv by now. Its been ten days. Statistically the longer an abducted person remains missing, the less likely he is to be found alive.'

'How do you know that he was abducted? He could have just taken off somewhere, it can't be that difficult to do if you've got the right contacts, surely.'

Sherlock shook his head, 'If he was still in this country he would have shown up on cctv by now, big brother is very much watching these days, and with facial recognition software you can track through hundreds of hours of footage from all over the country in a matter of minutes without leaving your comfortable desk in Pimlico. Controls at airports are even tighter. If he'd tried to leave the country, even on a false passport then he would have been picked up. And yet there have been no reports of a struggle. He must have arranged to meet someone at that tube station, Kate, a fire exit or maintenance door is the only logical escape route, as we've said before, but once there I suspect that events did not go the way that he expected.'

'But why would he arrange to meet somebody in a fire exit?'

'Love or money, equally powerful motivators.'

'Did you know that he was gay?' Kate asked suddenly. 'I'd forgotten in all of the Mycroft drama of last night, but when I was phoning down his contact list it was interesting that none of his work colleagues mentioned it - they all just said that he was a nice enough chap, but quiet and kept himself to himself. He'd apparently never mentioned a relationship to them. But one of his old university friends, one of only two who were on the list, said when I explained that I was friend, that for a moment he'd thought that I was going to tell him that Jamie had gone straight and I was his girlfriend.'

'Of course he was gay,' Sherlock said, 'Its obvious from the clothes in his flat, and from the amount of skin products that he owns. His work colleagues didn't know?'

'Apparently not.'

'But why would he keep it a secret?' Sherlock asked quietly, more to himself than to Kate, as if fascinated by the concept..

'I have no idea,' Kate said, 'The secret service isn't bothered by that sort of thing, surely.'

'They're very - traditional, Kate, on paper there's no discrimination, but in reality I can see why people would prefer to keep their personal life private. Plus all relationships have to be declared to senior officers and the other party security cleared. Which raises the possibility that Jamie Drayton could have been in a relationship with somebody who he knew that his employers would not approve of, hence the need to keep it secret.'

'But why would he be meeting him in the fire exit of a tube station?'

'People will do strange things for love, Kate,' Sherlock said quietly, 'I'm beginning to realise that.'

...

'Tell me again exactly what we're doing here?' John asked Sherlock.

'Inspecting fire exits, of course,' Sherlock said nonchalantly, flashing his 'visiting inspector' ID badge at John as he shone a torch on yet another fire exit door down a deserted tube corridor.

'No, I mean what are we really doing here,' John asked. 'Sherlock, this is our third tube station this morning. What are we looking for exactly?'

'I told you - open doors, scratched paintwork, scuff marks, signs of a struggle.'

'I take it that this is related to Jamie Drayton.'

'Of course.'

'You think that he left the tube station via a fire escape, or maintenance tunnel. Kate said that last night.'

'Of course, its the only thing that makes logical sense,' Sherlock said, then 'hang on,' as he tried a maintenance door with his hip and it swung open. 'We might have found what we're looking for.' He walked into the maintenance tunnel, John following closely behind him, flicking the switch on the wall as he entered, leaving John blinking in the sudden bright light after the gloom of the tunnel.

Sherlock examined the lock carefully from the other side. 'Picked,' he said 'Look, scratch marks around the lock where somebody has picked it with a wire, not very expertly I have to say, interesting.'

...

By the time that they left the tube station, complete with samples to analyse in the labs, Sherlock had fourteen missed calls on his phone, all from a blocked number. The phone rang again within seconds, and he switched it onto silent and rejected the call.

'What are you doing?' John asked, as his own phone began to ring and he went to answer it. 'Ignore it, it'll be Mycroft,' Sherlock said. 'Let him stew for a while longer, he deserves it.'

'Sherlock..' John said warningly, you know that he'll track you down eventually.

'Fine, but not until we've solved the case, and can prove to him that Kate isn't a distraction,' Sherlock said, 'Come on, we can get a cab back to Baker Street, so that you can get changed.

'Why do I have to get changed?' John asked perplexed.

'Well you can't exactly go investigating in gay bars looking like that,' Sherlock said, as if it was obvious.

...

Kate was having an even worse day than John if that was possible. She had walked into a department full of patients, still on trolleys in cubicles from the night before. 'No beds?' she asked her friend, Alice, who also happened to be the Sister in charge of the department for the day, as she looked at the computerised white board, which showed that there wasn't a spare cubicle in the department.

'Good guess,' Alice said. We've got a two hour wait to offload ambulances, and its only eight o'clock in the morning. Plus there's an overdose with a GCS of nine and a potentially thrombolysable stroke coming in within the next ten minutes - both pre-alerts from the crew, and only one resus bed.

'Managers?' Kate asked, shrugging her coat off and throwing it on a chair behind the nurses station. 'At a bed meeting, discussing how dreadful it is and not actually doing anything about it,' replied Alice sarcastically. 'You go and bang a few heads together, and I'll get your coat and bag put in your office where they're less likely to walk.'

Half an hour later, Kate had banged a few heads, expressed her displeasure, and had persuaded no less than three managers and two matrons that elective surgery patients really weren't a priority today, and miraculously got six beds on day surgery opened up for A&E patients to be transferred into within the hour.

'Good work,' Alice said when she told her. 'Now are you ready to do battle with the rest? Oh and the nine o'clock SHO has phoned in sick.'

'Excellent,' Kate muttered, as she walked into resus, with no expectation of emerging for the next few hours. Five and a half hours as it turned out, then finally walking to her office after being relieved by the two o'clock shift to multi-task by finally checking her email while eating the sandwich she had hastily grabbed from the hospital cafe, she was intercepted by her secretary. 'There's a policeman here to see you, Kate,' she said, 'A Detective Inspector I think he said, something about needing information about a patient.'

Kate recognised Greg Lestrade as soon as she walked into her office. 'Greg,' she said in surprise, 'what are you doing here?' and then, 'Oh,' as she recognised Mycroft Holmes, sitting in her chair, long limbs stretched out into the room as if it was his desk that he was sitting at, not hers.

'Dr Watson,' he said, reaching out to shake her hand, without getting up. 'Detective Inspector Lestrade suggested that some medical records might aid out current investigation, and given recent events I thought I would come along and see you in person.'

Kate nodded, not trusting herself to speak. 'How can I help?' she asked.

'We think that Jamie Drayton may have come here as a patient, three or four months back,' Greg Lestrade explained, possibly under a false name. He'd been assaulted. Can you check the records?'

'If Mycroft will let me get to my computer, certainly,' Kate said, trying not to glare. Didn't he know that he was the height of rudeness to sit at somebody else's desk? Or did he know and was he doing it to prove a point. She suspected the latter. For once she was grateful for the impersonal austerity of her office. No personal photos, no books other than textbooks, nothing that gave away clues about who or what she was. Admittedly the desk could have been tidier, but there was little to betray her to Mycroft Holmes, although given that he'd already read her medical records, her occupational health records, and in all likelihood her school reports and emails too, that was little comfort.

Logging on to the computer system she searched under Jamie Drayton's name - nothing, that wasn't in itself surprising. 'Any more clues?' she asked. 'Another name he could have used, date of injury, type of injury?'

'It was a sexual assault,' Lestrade explained, 'but he had facial injuries too, we think'.

'Oh,' Kate frowned, 'but then we wouldn't have dealt with that here. He would have gone to the rape suit, or whatever the politically correct name for it is, and been seen by the forensic medical officer.'

'He didn't report it,' Mycroft said calmly.

Kate searched under sexual assault in men, for the last four months, but came up with nothing.

'I can try under facial injuries,' she said, 'and look for men, what 25-35?' Greg Lestrade nodded, and Kate came up with a list of maybe twenty possibilities.

'Can I have the notes for all of those?' Greg Lestrade asked?'

'No,' Kate said, frowning, 'You can't. If we find a single possibility then sure, but I can't breach the other patients confidentiality like that.'

'I could come back with a warrant,' Mycroft said from the corner of the room, 'it is after all a matter of national security.'

'Give me ten minutes, Mycroft, and I'll narrow it down for you. Half of these patients are frequent flyers, with multiple A&E attendances over the last few years. If Jamie Drayton came here under a pseudonym, I suspect it would have been a single attendance. She clicked through the possibilities rapidly, and then after four and a half minutes, said, 'Here. 28 year old male, John Townsend, alleged assault, fractured zygoma, subconjunctival haemorrhage, rib fracture. What happened to him?'

'A blind date wouldn't take no for an answer, we think,' Greg Lestrade said. 'Unfortunately it happens to men as well as to women. Townsend was his mothers maiden name, so it fits. Can you print out the details Kate? The address might give us some clues.'

'So you're investigating too? Kate asked. 'Does Sherlock know?'

'I would tell him if I could get in touch with him,' Mycroft said, irritation evident in his voice. 'He's not answering his phone. Ignoring me does seem a little childish, but no more than I've come to expect.'

'He's been in the tube tunnels all morning,' Kate said, automatically leaping to Sherlock's defense. 'He probably didn't have a signal.'

'Investigating the site of Jamie Drayton's disappearance?'

'Exactly. He thinks that he was taken from the station via a back way, so he's investigating every station along the Northbound Victoria line to see if he can work out where he disappeared,'

'Any other progress?' Mycroft asked her. Kate hesitated, but then realised that if the police were now involved witholding evidence was probably not a sensible idea, and there was something else. 'He's dead, isn't he?' she asked Lestrade. 'Sherlock was right. You've found a body, thats why you're involved.'

'This morning, on the A5, just this side of Llangollen,' Lestrade told her. 'How did Sherlock know?'

'Gone too long, he said. Logically he had to have been abducted, and if he was abducted then the odds of him still being alive weren't in his favor.'

'Well he was correct,' Mycroft said, 'now Greg, I suggest that you take your medical records and go and see if my little brother is any more inclined to talk to you than he is to me, and let me have a few words with Kate.'

Kate managed to refrain from groaning as the door shut behind Greg Lestrade, who was looking distinctly worried about leaving her with Mycroft. She wondered if his conscience would get the better of him, and if he would tell Sherlock that Mycroft had arrived at her place of work to talk to her, despite Sherlock's best efforts to keep them apart.

'What can I do for you Mycroft?' Kate said with a sigh, 'and why don't you sit down, you're making me nervous standing there.'

Mycroft took the proffered seat. 'Dr Watson, I'll come straight to the point. I would like to know if your relationship with my brother goes beyond the professional.'

Kate considered for a moment. 'Why do you want to know?' she asked finally.

'Because I am concerned for my brother's welfare,' Mycroft said with a cold smile.

'Is he not entitled to make his own decisions?' Kate asked, determined not to let him rattle her.

'You're avoiding the question.'

'Yes I am,' Kate agree,' because to be frank I'm not sure that its any of your business.'

'My brother's welfare is always my business,' Mycroft said, with no trace of emotion. What was it with these Holmes boys? Kate knew a little about Sherlock's upbringing but what sort of parents had they really had to bring up two sons who betrayed so little emotion.

'That word again - welfare,' Kate said, 'Sherlock is a grown man, Mycroft. Surely he is entitled to make his own decisions - and his own mistakes.'

'So you term your relationship a mistake?'

'No of course not - I..' Kate hesitated, realising that she had disclosed more information than she had intended.

'Mycroft, you know full well that I am having a relationship with your brother,' she said firmly. 'You have had us followed and photographed for the last four days. You know that I have been staying at his flat. Your spies - is that the right word - operatives I suppose you could call them, they have seen us holding hands, laughing together, kissing and goodness knows what else, so why pretend that you're not aware of what is going on? Is it so hard to believe that your brother might find someone who wanted to be with him for honest reasons? What are you so worried about.'

She should have known that any attempt to appeal to Mycroft Holmes' better nature would fail before she opened her mouth, but it had to be worth a try.

'I am worried that you will destroy him,' Mycroft said quietly. 'My brother is not what you think he is, Dr Watson. Has he told you about his psychiatric history?'

'He told me that he had a spell as an inpatient as a teenager, yes.'

'Has he told you about the rest, about the drugs?'

Kate stared at Mycroft, what was he trying to say?

'I see by your silence that he hasn't.'

Kate was struggling to construct her next sentence when she was saved by a knock on the door - one of the majors nurses. 'Trauma call, five minutes out, Kate,' she said. 'Pedestrian versus bus, sounds messy.'

'I've got to go,' Kate said to Mycroft, picking up her stethoscope from the desk.

'Can we continue this conversation later, perhaps?' he asked.

Kate shook her head, already at the door. 'I don't think so, Mycroft. I know your brother, I know who he is, nothing that you have to say will change that.'

'But it already has,' Mycroft said to himself softly as the door closed behind her.


	12. Chapter 12

Once doubt creeps in, once you stop trusting the other person entirely then the cracks start to appear. Kate knew this from previous relationships, and yet the doubt that Mycroft had planted in her brain began to grow, despite all of her attempts to stop it.

She was strangely relieved when John, not Sherlock, was waiting for her outside work that evening.

'You get me today, sorry,' John said with a grin. 'Sherlock's trawling through a whole load of cctv footage from outside Highbury station, trying to find the car that abducted Jamie Drayton.'

'Did Greg Lestrade catch up with you?'

'Yes, thanks for the text - Sherlock was all for doing it on his own, he's so pissed off with Mycroft, but his smugness about being right about Jamie Drayton's murder over-rode that.'

'Any post-mortem results yet?'

'Early days, but single shot to the back of the head by the sound of it.'

'Professional job then.'

'We think so.'

'John, why does Mycroft want Sherlock to investigate this? The police are involved now, his own men too, why bring Sherlock into it?'

'I suspect because he thinks that it might be an inside job - he's keeping the secrets service guys at arms length, thats for sure. We've hardly seen them, and thats unusual. Usually they're telling us off for treading on their toes.'

'Did Lestrade tell you about the assault too?'

'Yes. Interesting. It ties up with another of Sherlock's theories, hence my somewhat eye-opening afternoon touring the local gay bars. You'd be amazed at how many of those places are open at lunch time.'

'Did you find anything?'

'Several people recognised Jamie's picture, although unsurprisingly they had known him by a different name. Turns out there was a boyfriend, one that only arrived on the scene a few weeks ago. South American we think. Lestrade is trying to identify him from the cctv footage.' John showed her a picture on his mobile phone, captured from the cctv.

'Quite a catch for a man like Jamie,' Kate said, looking at the undeniably beautiful man in the picture. 'Honey-trap?'

'Seems likely, doesn't it.'

'John, ' Kate hesitated, 'Did Lestrade tell you that Mycroft came with him to see me at work today.'

'No, although I thought that he sounded a bit evasive,' John said. 'Can't say that I'm surprised. How was he?'

'Fine. Odd.' Kate said with a frown. 'He told me that he was worried that I would destroy Sherlock.'

'Did he say why?'

'No.'

'He's talking rubbish, Kate. Sherlock is happier than I've ever seen him.'

'Really?'

'Its not like you to be uncertain,' John said with a sideways look at her as they walked towards the tube station. 'He hasn't got to you has he?'

'No, of course not,' Kate said, then, 'John would it be wrong not to tell him unless he asks? I don't want to lie to him, or go behind his back, but just - from his reaction yesterday, I don't want to upset him, and if he walks away from the case again its just going to give Mycroft more ammunition, isn't it?'

'You're asking me for relationship advice Kate?'

'Yes,' Kate said bluntly. 'What would you do?'

John considered carefully. 'I wouldn't volunteer the information unless it comes up in conversation, but I wouldn't lie to him either,' John said finally. 'You were right last night. Trust is a huge thing for him, don't do anything to betray that trust.'

Kate nodded. 'It sounds as if he's too distracted by the case to think about Mycroft anyway.'

'Don't you believe it,' John said darkly. 'He's been ignoring his phone-calls all day and making me do the same. Thats why Lestrade had to phone me.'

'So he's still angry?'

'Furious I would say, but he's successfully ignoring it and focusing on the case, just like he always does.'

'Another reason not to rock the boat?'

'I'd say so,' John said frowning slightly, 'I've never seen him so unsettled by Mycroft, Kate, its not like him.'

'Then the last thing that I need to do is to make it worse,' Kate told him, as they walked through the ticket barriers, tapping their oyster cards as they went. 'I just wish that Mycroft will back off.'

'He will eventually,' John told her. 'He did with me - tried to warn me off, but eventually he seemed to decide that I was a good influence. Its when he starts phoning you to get messages through to Sherlock that you need to start worrying.'

Kate shuddered at the prospect.

...

Arriving at the lab, bag of sandwiches and coffee in hand to compensate for Kate's missed lunch, which she realised was still sitting abandoned on the desk in her office, they found Sherlock humming cheerfully to himself as he alternated between a rapid progression of slides on his microscope, and the notes that he was writing in indecipherable hand writing in the work book next to him.

He looked up and grinned broadly at Kate as she walked in the door, 'Is that food? I'm starving,' he said uncharacteristically as she came over to the bench and kissed him hello, John diplomatically busying himself with checking the computer for new emails.

'If you're thinking about food then things must be going well,' Kate said, handing him a sandwich and a coffee. 'I'm assuming that you didn't get any lunch either?'

'Why what time is it?' he asked, as if surprised that the day had gone so fast.

'Just after six,' she told him, pulling up a stool next to him, his arm still firmly round her waist, as if he had forgotten about it. 'So what have you found?'

There seemed little point in suggesting that sandwiches and chemicals didn't mix as he devoured his food, while continuing to consider the sample under the microscope.

'Have a look,' he said, pushing the microscope across to her.

'Clothes fibres,' she said, relieved that she could recognise what she was looking at.

'Clothes fibres that match the suit that Jamie Drayton that he was wearing when he disappeared.

'Found in the tube tunnels?'

'Exactly, and we've got a match on the car we picked up on cctv too, John. Registered to a Walter Smith, obviously an alias, but spotted behind the flat of a well known crime syndicate three days before, and then picked up on CCTV heading out of London on the M 40three hours later.

'On its way to Wales?' John asked, joining in the conversation, and coming over to claim his own sandwich.

'Exactly,' Sherlock said. Then with a sigh, 'But it almost seems too easy, too neat, doesn't it? Lestrade phoned. They've identified the man in the cctv from the bar that you picked up this afternoon, John. He came into the country on a false passport two months ago, only a week before he was first spotted with Jamie. He's got a police record as long as your arm in Brazil. Seducing both men and women and disappearing with large sums of their money is his speciality, although recently he's branched out into slightly more violent variations of this.'

'So was he involved in the attack on Jamie?' Kate asked confused, 'but the dates don't match up do they?'

'The attack was five weeks previously, but almost certainly related,' Sherlock said, looking between Kate and John to see who would make the connection first.

'You're saying that someone arranged for him to be attacked, so that he would be an easier target for the softly, softly approach by the Brazilian beauty?' John said incredulously. 'You've got to be kidding. What sort of sick individual -'

Sherlock shook his head, 'This is not a pleasant world, John, you know that. It would appear that that is exactly what happened. The man involved in the attack had never been seen at that bar before, or since. He went in there, made a bee-line for Jamie, almost certainly spiked his drink and then later got a little rough. Part of Luiz Costa's appeal was that he was everything that Jamie's attacker hadn't been. Gentle, kind, protective. The perfect honey-trap I would say.

'So what was it all for?' Kate asked. 'Information?'

'It would appear that Jamie was working on more than the standard GCHQ analyst,' Sherlock said, 'although Mycroft won't give me the details. Only that it is information of importance to National Security. Whoever kidnapped Jamie Drayton was playing the long game.'

'Did they get the information that they wanted?'

'We have to assume so. They wouldn't have shot him unless they'd got what he wanted. Mycroft is working to seal the leak. They're already trying to track down Carlos, but we know nothing about the other members of the gang. Our best bet is to track them through Wales, discover where they took Jamie and see what forensics we can reclaim from there.'

'You've talked to Mycroft?' Kate asked, wondering if he had told Sherlock that he had been to see her. The impassivity of Sherlock's tone and the lack of anger told her that he hadn't. 'Mainly texts,' Sherlock told her. 'I find it less - irritating, than speaking to him directly.'


	13. Chapter 13

Kate was used to working long hours, but working with Sherlock and John was something else entirely. Despite the endless cups of coffee by two in the morning she was yawning and struggling to keep her burning eyes open. The computer screen kept fading in and out of view as she lost her ability to focus. John, working on the computer next to her grinned at her. 'Why don't you go and sleep on the sofa in the coffee room? Sherlock's coat would make a good blanket and I'm sure he wouldn't mind.' Kate did as he suggested, barely remembering staggering to the coffee room and lying down. The next thing she knew Sherlock was there, waking her with a soft kiss on her forehead.

'Sorry,' she murmured, sitting up and pushing her hair back from her face. 'What time is it?'

'Half seven. We've just about finished here. We're heading back to Baker Street to tie up some loose ends and pack.'

'Pack for where?' Kate asked, trying desperately to remember what time she was meant to be at , she remembered, for a meeting before her late shift. Just as well given the time, she would have been horribly late for an early shift.

'For Wales of course,' Sherlock said as if it was obvious.

Then John appeared, and handed her a cup of tea which she gulped gratefully, trying and failing to wake up. Sherlock sat down next to her.

'So are you coming?' he asked.

'Coming where?'

'To Wales. We've tracked down the car to a village just outside Bangor - burnt out of course, but there might still be some evidence to find, and tracking down the place where they stayed should be easier, just needs some leg work.'

'Sherlock, I can't. I'm working a late shift today, and an early tomorrow,' Kate said.

'Can't you take some time off?'

Kate gave him a look, which made his lips twitch. 'Responsibility again?' he sighed. 'So boring Kate, can't you live dangerously?'

She raised an eyebrow at him and he took the hint. 'Fine,' he said. 'But you can't stay at the flat on your own, Mycroft would be there in minutes. Can you stay with someone?'

'I'll phone Alice as soon as I'm awake, she's got a spare room at the moment, I'm sure she'll have me.'

'Good,' he frowned slightly, 'I want you safe, Kate,' he said slowly, as if he found the words painful, 'If Mycroft comes anywhere near you -'

'He won't,' Kate interrupted, not wanting to tell him that Mycroft had already got to her, and so was now likely to stay away, 'But give me some credit, will you? I'm not that easily manipulated. Mycroft won't change anything, no matter what he says.'

Apart from the doubt, she wanted to say. Apart from all those questions which he had raised that she desperately wanted to ask Sherlock and couldn't, not until the case was over. They would wait for a few days, and she knew Sherlock didn't she? Knew him, and loved him, and was sure that caring for him like this could only be a good thing. How could Mycroft possibly be right? How could she destroy him?'

'Kate?' Sherlock's voice sounded distant, she blinked, and focused on him, looking at her with concern.

'Sorry, sorry,' she smiled at him, stroked his face and then hugged him. His arms came up and held her tight. 'I'm just tired,' she said, 'I'm not used to all-nighters anymore.'

He seemed convinced, 'Plenty of time for you to get some more sleep before we head off,' he said. 'We can drop you off at work on out way out of London.'

...

When a dark blue Freelander turned up outside the door of Baker Street that afternoon, collected it turned out by John from a nearby secure garage, Kate found herself unsurprised.

'Is it yours?' she asked, curiously.

Sherlock shook his head as he opened the boot and threw his bag in. 'No,' he said, 'of course not. Far too much form filling and dealing with garages involved in owning a car. Its Mycrofts, well at least its one of a fleet that he has access to. He lets me borrow it when I need a car.'

'Lets you?' Kate asked with a smile, 'or is unaware that you've borrowed it until after the event.'

'A mixture of the two,' Sherlock admitted, staring at her for a split-second too long.

'What?' she asked, picking up on his concern.

'I don't like it,' he said softly, as John busied himself with stowing his own kit on the backseat of the car. 'There's something wrong about this, Kate. Promise me that you'll stay away from Mycroft.'

'You think its a set-up? To get you away from me? Not even Mycroft would be that devious surely?'

'Mycroft is capable of things that you can't even imagine,' Sherlock said, as he held the passenger door open for her, leaving John to scramble into the back seat before Sherlock claimed the drivers seat and drove away.


	14. Chapter 14

When Sherlock texted later that evening to check that she had arrived safely at Alice's, Kate was able to tell him that Mycroft had stayed away. Any guilt that she felt at still concealing Mycroft's earlier visit to her was negated by the memory of his last reaction to his brother's interference, and the interruption that this had caused to the case. They had made good progress he told her, already having identified several possible buildings where Jamie Drayton could have been taken, before being defeated by the darkness and retreating to their hotel for the night.

The next day also passed without event, although she found herself jumping at every shadow, waiting for Mycroft's reappearance.

Finishing work at six, she arranged to meet Alice who was on a longer shift back at her flat an hour later, promising to pick up something for tea on her way back. Even if Mycroft did try to confront her, she reasoned, he was unlikely to try and abduct her on a busy London street.

Walking past her own flat on the way to Alice's, Tesco's bag in hand, she decided to stop in to check her post, and to pick up her phone charger. She had been sharing Sherlock's at Baker Street and her phone battery was almost dead. She had been in her flat for less than ten minutes when the doorbell rang.

'Dr Watson? Police. Can we come up?'

Slightly perturbed, but not yet suspecting a conspiracy, Kate buzzed them in through the street door. As she opened the flat door to let the uniformed officer in, he stood aside to reveal Mycroft Holmes, 'Ah, Dr Watson, at last. May I come in?' Without waiting for an answer, he walked into her flat flanked by two security men, who shut the door firmly behind them, before taking up guard in front of it. Of the uniformed police officer, if that was indeed what he was, there was no further sign. Neatly done, Kate thought, sitting down in an arm chair with a sigh. If he thought that she was going to offer him a cup of tea, he had another thought coming.

'Isn't this illegal?' Kate asked conversationally, as Mycroft prowled around the room inspecting her bookshelves, then when he failed to reply, 'Why don't you sit down Mycroft, since I presume that you're planning on staying.'

'Thank you,' Mycroft replied, arranging his long limbs into the armchair opposite her, in a way that reminded Kate uncomfortably of Sherlock.

'Why are you here?' Kate asked, searching Mycroft's face for any sign of emotion, anything that would give her a clue as to why he was doing this, but there was nothing. His face was a blank, his emotions locked so safely away that even she could not discern them. There was certainly no anxiety, no self-doubt, no sense of unease at what he was doing. Only a quiet self-possession, a confidence that what he was doing was entirely correct. That was what Kate got from Mycroft Holmes.

'You know why I'm here,' Mycroft said. 'To discuss your relationship with my brother.'

He held out his hand without looking round, and one of the security men placed a brown folder into it, which he passed to Kate. Inside were photos of Kate and Sherlock. Having dinner together, walking on the Heath, talking, laughing, all of the things that Kate had described to Mycroft. Strangely she found that she rather liked the photos. She hadn't seen any pictures of her and Sherlock together before and they looked - happy, like two people who were so wrapped up in each other that they were paying little attention to the rest of the world, in short they looked like two people in love. She should feel angry, she knew, but emotion was exactly what Mycroft was trying to elicit in her, and she wouldn't give him that pleasure. Instead she said calmly, 'You knew that we were having a relationship, Mycroft. What did you expect?'

'I have to confess,' Mycroft said, 'that I am surprised at the level of my brothers intimacy with you.'

'Why?' Kate asked, 'He's a fully grown adult man in his thirties, why should you be surprised that he wants a relationship?'

'You misunderstand me, Dr Watson, I am not surprised that he wants a relationship, I am surprised that he is capable of one.'

Kate stared at him, still not understanding. 'Because Sherlock has always regarded emotion as a weakness,' Mycroft said impassively, 'he displays little emotion, he despises displays of emotions in others, and yet in these photographs he looks -'

'Happy?' Kate finished for him. 'I think that he is.'

'The happiness concerns me, but the carelessness concerns me more.'

'You don't want your brother to be happy?' Kate asked incredulously.

'I don't want his fragile mental state disrupted,' Mycroft said sharply, leaning forward and fixing her in a basilisk stare. 'You have to understand Dr Watson that my brother is not an ordinary man. His mood is at best unstable. Any elevation in mood will inevitably lead to a swing to the opposite extreme, and that could be extremely dangerous for him. You are extremely dangerous for him,' he concluded softly.

Kate shook her head, still struggling to understand. 'You're describing manic-depression, Sherlock doesn't have manic-depression.'

'How do you know?'

'Because he would have told me,' Kate said stubbornly.

'Would he?'

'We talked about this,' Kate said, 'our first weekend together. We agreed, no secrets. Besides, if he had manic depression he would be on medication, he isn't, and besides John would have told me if that was the case.'

'John doesn't know.'

'How could he not know?' Kate exploded, not trying to conceal her anger now. 'John's worked with him for five years, lived with him for three years, how could he possibly not know?'

'He is aware that Sherlock has mood swings, that his behavior can be erratic, that sometimes he takes to his bed or disappears for days. Where he goes and what he does, the cause for the mood swings he has never chosen to question.'

'And medication?' Kate asked.

'He does not take medication because he is non-compliant with treatment,' Mycroft said, 'at least the medication that he takes he is not prescribed.'

'You're saying that he uses street drugs? That he self-medicates?' Kate shook her head, fighting back the nausea. 'No, I don't believe it.'

'I can provide you with psychiatric notes for my brother dating back to his teenage years, and details of his previous admission to a rehabilitation clinic for detox if that would convince you.' He snapped his fingers and a large yellow folder of medical notes appeared.

'No,' Kate shouted, then closed her eyes, and bit her lip trying to calm herself.

'What if I told you that I didn't care?' she asked.

'Because you love him so much? After three short weeks?' Mycroft asked softly. 'Enough to commit the rest of your life to a man prone to violent outbursts, to deep bouts of depression and who is at risk of sinking deeper and deeper into addiction? Is that really what you want?'

'I love Sherlock,' Kate whispered, 'all of him, exactly as he is. It doesn't matter.'

'Are you trying to convince me or yourself, Dr Watson?'

Kate shook her head, her resolve strengthening. 'Are you trying to persuade me that mental illness is a reason not to embark on a relationship with someone? I've been there Mycroft, I got through it. So in a way maybe I'm damaged too, maybe that helps me to understand Sherlock a little better. No, he's not ordinary, but he is what he is, and if madness comes, in whatever form, then we will face it together, and I will do what I can to help him through it.'

'Admirable sentiments, Dr Watson, but what if I told you that exactly that concern and your very relationship with him could be enough to tip him into madness, what then?'

Kate remained silent. 'What if I told you that his first episode of depression was precipitated by a relationship not dissimilar to this one,' Mycroft said quietly, 'that the route cause of his depression was the elevation of his mental state caused by his happiness in the time spent with this girl, and the subsequent destruction of that relationship.'

'I have no intention of destroying this relationship,' Kate said, trying to convince herself.

'I'm sure that you don't, but Sherlock inevitably will. He will drive you away, just as he does everyone else, as soon as the novelty wears off. He has been hiding his true nature from you, Kate, controlling the lows. When they re-emerge he will push you away, his behaviour will become erratic, he will make you hate him, and eventually you will have no choice but to walk away. And when you do, it will destroy him.'

'I won't walk away,' Kate said defiantly.

'He will leave you no choice,' Mycroft repeated.

'John,' Kate said desperately,' John hasn't walked away.'

'John is the only person that I have come across who can ride my brother's highs and lows,' Mycroft told her. 'And he is extraordinary in his ability to do that. But even John has been driven away on occasion, although he always returns. And John, Dr Watson, is not in love with my brother, is not sharing his bed and his heart with him. Trust me when I say that this relationship will destroy both of you, and the longer that you leave it, the worst that damage will be.'

'No,' Kate whispered, doubt rushing through her mind now, remembering the times before she had started going out with Sherlock; his strange moods on occasion, often followed by prolonged periods of silence, no word from him for two weeks at one point. John had even turned up to do a couple of locums during that time, saying only that Sherlock was in bed with flu in answer to her queries. When Sherlock had re-emerged he had looked a little paler, a little thinner and had been quieter than normal for a week or so before bouncing back to his normal self, was that what Mycroft was referring to?

She was aware that Mycroft was watching her expression, analysing her, but she no longer cared.

'I thought that you were going to accuse me of being a distraction,' she said with a shaky attempt at a laugh, that you would say that I was stopping him from working.

'You are,' Mycroft said, almost dismissively, 'but that is a secondary concern. The case in itself is not important, Dr Watson. It is intriguing, certainly, but we already had leads to the key suspects, independently of Sherlock's involvement.'

'It was a set-up?' Kate asked incredulously.

'It is a genuine case,' Mycroft assured her, 'and Sherlock's involvement has brought up useful intelligence, but we already have the perpetrators in custody and the information has already been secured. Sherlock has been tying up some lose ends for me, nothing more.'

'You wanted to prove the effect that I have on his work,' Kate said dully.

'Partly, yes, and the evidence so far is far from encouraging I have to say. So far you have precipitated him abandoning work entirely on Monday evening, when his normal coping techniques failed to mitigate his anger at me, and I believe that he also failed to work yesterday morning - electing instead to spend the morning in bed, with you.'

Kate blushed, trying to work out how the hell Mycroft knew what they had spent yesterday morning doing, after their return from the lab, and before Sherlock and John's departure for Wales.

'Monday evening was about how angry he was with you, not about anything else.'

'Anger precipitated by his concern for you, and his desperation to prevent precisely this conversation. Now tell me, are these the actions of a rational man?'

Kate opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again, as words yet again failed her.

'My brother is indeed an adult man, Dr Watson, but he is an adult man who is incapable of managing his own financial affairs, over which I still hold power of attorney, and who is incapable of deciding what is in his own best interest. You, I am afraid, are not in his best interest, and if you truly care for him, I would suggest that you end this now, while the damage can still be limited.'

Mycroft continued talking, but Kate heard little of what else he had to say. She was huddled up now in the chair, unconsciously trying to make herself as small as possible. At some point, Mycroft and the security guards left and she allowed herself the luxury of crying herself to sleep, ignoring the persistent ringing of her phone, and the buzz of her doorbell. At some point in the night she woke, cold now that the heating had clicked off, and remembering Alice's tendency to over-react, fired off a quick text to her to stop her having the door broken down by the police, then pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa, and retreated there for the rest of the night, unable to face the cold emptiness of her bed.


	15. Chapter 15

The next day found Sherlock and John on a remote country road, several miles from Beddgelert, both frustrated by the sheer number of false trails and dead ends that they seemed to be encountering. After yet another attempt at contacting Kate and getting her answer phone, Sherlock did an abrupt U- turn and swung the land rover back on the road leading towards civilization.

'Somethings wrong, John,' he said. 'She's avoiding me. Phone her through switchboard would you?'

John phoned the hospital switchboard, asked to be put through to Kate's mobile, then frowned 'Its going to voicemail,' he told him.

'Leave a message,' Sherlock said, his hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel, 'and then try her secretary.' He floored the accelerator, lurching the land rover along the twisting road. If John hadn't had so much confidence in his reflexes he would have been worried, but Sherlock's driving style was still making him feel vaguely nauseated.

A few minutes later John put the phone down with a groan 'She phoned in sick. Migraine apparently. Does Kate even get migraines? Apparently everyone is worried because she never phones in sick'

'I knew it. Bloody Mycroft,' then in answer to John's enquiring glance, 'Too many false trails John, don't you see? This entire trip has been a set-up. I will bet you any sum of money that Mycroft already has the kidnappers in custody. This whole thing was a set-up to get us away from London and allow Mycroft to get to Kate.'

'You can't possibly know that,' John said. 'Kate might really have a migraine,' it sounded improbable even as he said it.

'You don't believe that, and neither do I,' Sherlock said grimly, 'but there's one way to find out. Do you know how to contact her friend Alice? Kate was meant to be staying there.'

'I can try her at work,' John said, 'if she's not there, then I'm sure I can talk someone I know there into giving me her phone number.'

Their luck was in, Alice was at work, and when she came to the phone she sounded worried. 'John, are you with Sherlock? Have you heard from Kate, how is she?'

'She's not answering her phone,' John said, 'thats why I'm calling.' Then in response to Sherlock's furious gesturing, 'Hang on, Sherlock wants to talk to you, but he's driving, I'm putting you on speaker phone.'

'Alice its Sherlock, what happened, I thought that Kate was going to be staying with you.'

'She was, that is she did on Wednesday night. She left work before me last night, and never turned up at mine. I thought you must have got back early, and she'd just forgotten to text, She wasn't answering her phone, but then she texted me at about midnight, said that she had a migraine and had gone back to her flat and was had fallen asleep. Then she phoned in sick this morning, so it sort of all made sense, but its still out of character. Why, do you think there's something else going on?'

'Does Kate even get migraines?' John asked curiously.

'She did when we were teenagers, bad ones that would send her to bed for the day, then not for years, but she had a couple after she lost the baby, so I wasn't entirely surprised. She never phones in sick though, and no matter how bad she is, she'd always talk to Sherlock. Whats going on?'

Sherlock remained silent, chewing on the side of his finger as he drove, his attention obviously far from the road. John wondered what the chances were of persuading him to pull over and let him drive back.

'We have no idea,' John started to say, but Sherlock interrupted him.

'Alice, can you do me a favor, could you try texting Kate, and see if she'll reply? Just ask her if she's feeling better or something. I want to make sure that somebody else isn't answering her phone for her.'

'Sure. Hang on'. Pause 'She says she's fine, feeling much better, sorry about last night. Sounds like Kate.'

'Can you somehow ask her if this has anything to do with me, and put something in, some reference to your past so that we can make sure that its her'

'Okay. How about -

'Might be jumping to conclusions but is everything okay with you and S. It isn't another JT situation is it?'

Kate's reply came through in less that a minute. 'She says: 'Its complicated, no nothing like JT, but I need to think things through on my own'. 'Sherlock, I'm sorry,' Alice said, obviously feeling uncomfortable, at being the one to convey this news. 'I don't know whats got into her. She was so happy.'

'No its fine, this is Mycroft's doing, I just need to get to talk to her. Can you find out why she's avoiding me'

'Hang on.'

'Have you talked to him about this. Can I help at all?'

Answer:

'No, I need to get my head straight before I see him. Will phone you tomorrow.'

Sherlock was silent. John looked at him concerned, then flicked the phone off speaker.

'Thanks Alice. We're heading back now, should be there in four hours or so, depending on the traffic. Can you do me a favour? If I give you my phone number can you let me know if Kate contacts you again.'

'Of course. I'd go round there, but I'm here until half seven. But I don't understand, John. I've never seen her so sure about a relationship. Why would she have changed her mind so suddenly?'

'Lets just say that Sherlock's brother can be very persuasive. We'll keep you updated. Thanks Alice.'

The speedometer on the land rover read over 90mph within seconds of turning onto the main road. 'Sherlock slow down,' John told him firmly. ' If we get pulled over by the police it'll take us even longer to get there'. Sherlock slowed to 85mph, John didn't rate his chances of being allowed to drive back.

'Lestrade would get us off, but you're right, we don't want any more delays. What on earth did Mycroft say to her John?'

'I have absolutely no idea,' John said, but he sounded uneasy. Sherlock darted him a sharp look. 'What?' he snapped.

John hesitated for a moment, then deciding that concealing the truth had got them into enough trouble already said. 'Mycroft already got to Kate, Sherlock. On Tuesday, while she was at work.'

Sherlock's hands were white where they gripped the steering wheel, his foot was flat on the floor and the speedometer was climbing - 90mph, 95mph. John decided that enough was enough.

'Sherlock pull over,' he said. Then when Sherlock ignored him, he grabbed the steering wheel and shouted, 'Sherlock pull over now, or so help me I'll turn this wheel myself.'

Sherlock swerved abruptly, coming to a screeching halt in a conveniently placed lay-by.

'Thank you.' John said quietly. Sherlock was sitting motionless, eyes closed, hands still clenching the steering wheel. John gave him a few minutes and then said. 'We'll fix this, Sherlock, I promise. Kate's not stupid. Whatever Mycroft has said to her, she just needs a chance to work out the truth.'

Sherlock remained immobile. 'Look you can sit there and sulk,' John said, 'or you can get out, let me drive and we can spend the next four hours working out how we're going to sort this out.'

Silently Sherlock swung open the drivers door, leaving the keys in the ignition, and walked round to the passenger seat.

'Good decision,' John said as he restarted the engine and pulled back onto the main road.

'What,' Sherlock asked finally, struggling to control the anger,'Did Mycroft say to her, and why on earth didn't she tell me.'

'I don't know what he said to her. 'Nothing much' was her comment to me, so I presume that he's got to her again since then. And she didn't tell you because she saw your reaction to Mycroft's interference on Monday night, and she didn't want to upset you, or distract you in the middle of a case.'

'So instead she's refusing to talk to me?'

'Sherlock,' John sighed, trying to concentrate on the road, 'I hate to be the one that tells you this, but this is how relationships work. Not always because of interference by external parties, admittedly, but arguments, or one person having doubts and needing some space, it happens. Its about how you work through it.'

Sherlock looked at him incredulously. 'This is Kate, John, she doesn't have doubts, not until Mycroft got to her anyway.'

'Everyone has doubts Sherlock. Mycroft's just found a way to feed into the doubts that Kate already has. We just have to work out what those are.'


	16. Chapter 16

They got back to London a little after three. John parked the land rover round the corner from Kate's flat, and rang the doorbell as planned. No answer. He rang again, and again until eventually the intercom crackled into life. 'Kate, its John. Are you okay? We're worried about you.'

'Is Sherlock there?' she asked.

'No, he's gone to the lab. Its just me. He asked me to come and check that were okay.'

'I'm fine, John. Its just not a good time'

'Can I come up? Just for a minute, so I can tell him that you haven't been abducted by aliens, or more to the point, Mycroft?'

Kate buzzed him in, then opened the door to his knock. She looked tear-stained and exhausted, very unlike her normal composed and confident self.

'Hi Kate' John said, then 'I'm sorry, I lied, very out of character,' as Sherlock came round the corner from where he had been hiding with his back against the wall by the door.

Kate burst into tears at the sight of him. Sherlock took her in his arms, instinctively trying to comfort her, but she pushed him away.

'I cant, Sherlock, I'm sorry but I can't do this now. John, take him away, please.' Her voice was almost hysterical.

Shocked, Sherlock walked to the opposite side of the room standing straight-backed against the fireplace, as she collapsed down on the sofa, sobbing. John shut the door and then came and sat beside her, arm round her shoulders. 'Kate, calm down. What happened? Was Mycroft here?'

Silently she nodded. Sherlock and John exchanged a look. 'Please, Sherlock, I will explain but not now, I can't do this now,' she said brokenly.

'Okay, okay', John soothed, confused by her reaction. 'Can you explain whats going on to me if you can't explain to Sherlock?' Then when she remained silent he grasped her shoulders, and pulling back slightly so that she had to look at him, said firmly, 'Kate, will you talk to me if Sherlock isn't here?'

Kate nodded, still looking down. John pulled a ten pound note out of his wallet and gave it to Sherlock, who looked as if he was ready to hit someone, probably Mycroft. 'Sherlock, here's what you're going to do. You're going to go to the shop on the corner, buy some cigarettes, smoke one, maybe two, walk around the block twice and then come back after at least ten minutes'

'You're telling me to smoke? You've spent the past five years trying to stop me from smoking'

'I'm telling you to go and calm down, and to do something to keep yourself occupied for the next ten minutes'

'Kate?'

Kate shook her head, which was still buried in John's shoulder.

'Fine' said Sherlock, walking to the door, barely controlling his anger. John just hoped that he wasn't going to use those ten minutes to do something that they'd both regret, like confront Mycroft. He'd seen Sherlock in this mood before, and it didn't generally end well. 'But Kate' he said with his hand on the door handle, hesitating, uncharacteristically for just a second, as John realised how exactly how far outside his comfort zone he was. 'Please don't do this,' he said, anger suddenly gone, an edge of desperation to his voice. 'Because its not true. Whatever he said to you, it is not true, just try to believe that,' and then there was only the sound of the door shuting behind him as he left the flat.

John and Kate listened in silence to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs, and then to the street door closing, before John turned to Kate and said gently, 'God Kate, you look awful, did you sleep at all last night?'

She shrugged. 'On and off,' she said, reaching for a tissue and blowing her nose loudly.

'Tell me whats going on,' John said calmly, more concerned for her than for Sherlock now. 'Was Mycroft here?'

Kate nodded, silently.

'When? Last night?'

Kate nodded again.

'And he said something to you, probably several things, that made you believe that you should break up with Sherlock.'

'Yes.'

'Kate, I may be biased here because goodness knows he is an entirely more pleasant person to be around since you've been on the scene, but don't you think that he deserves a chance to put his side of things across before you make a decision?'

'But thats exactly it,' Kate said, struggling to keep her voice level. 'I know the decision that I need to make, but if I try to talk to him then I know that he'll talk me out of it. He will make it seem perfectly logical that we should stay together, and I don't want - I cant - go through this all again in six months or a years time, when it will all be so much the worse for him.'

'So Sherlock's right. Mycroft has somehow made you believe that this relationship is bad for him, thats why you think that you need to end it.'

Kate nodded, miserably, then hid her face in her hands again. John gave her a quick hug, before saying quietly, 'But Kate, you are absolutely the best thing that has ever happened to him. Can't you see that?'

She shook her head before sitting up and saying, 'No, John. That's just the point. I know it might seem like that, but I'm not good for him. _This_ isn't good for him, but if you can' t see that then how am I ever going to convince him?'

John stared at her in amazement, 'Mycroft really did a good job, didn't he. I don't get it, Kate. You and Sherlock - you're just about perfect for each other from what I can see, so unless I'm missing something massive, it comes to this. Who do you trust - Mycroft or Sherlock.'

'Its not about that, John.'

'Isn't it? Then maybe it should be.'

Kate rested her head back against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. She looked exhausted. 'I can't keep going through and through this in my head.'

'Then how about you go try it out loud. Try to explain it to me - and to Sherlock. Give him a chance to hear your reasons at least, and I'll mediate. If at any point I think that he's blinding you unfairly with his phenomenal logic, then I'll intercede. How would that be.'

'And if at the end of the conversation my decision is unchanged then you'll take him away and try to get him to understand,' Kate added, grabbing another tissue from the box.

John hesitated just a second before reluctantly agreeing. Damn Mycroft and his poisonous words, making two people that he cared about so miserable in one foul swoop. Knowing Mycroft there must have been logic behind his action. A perceived threat - but whether to Sherlock himself, or to the work it was impossible to tell. But how to explain that to Kate without sounding as if he was taking sides? 'I promise,' he said finally, hoping desperately that it wouldn't come to that.

They sat in silence for a while, broken by a ring on the doorbell. 'Ready? John asked as he got up to buzz Sherlock in. Kate took a deep breath and nodded.


	17. Chapter 17

Sherlock looked considerably calmer than earlier. 'No cigarettes?' John asked, surprised.

He scowled 'Kate hates me smoking, she made that clear from her expression the other night, although she tried to hide it. I went for a walk instead.'

Kate smiled at him despite herself. He made to go towards her but John blocked him 'Not a good idea. Go and sit in the chair over there.'

'Kate,' Sherlock started, but she shook her head, looking down at the floor, not trusting herself to look at him. 'Kate,' he continued, 'I don't know what Mycroft said to you, but I can imagine. Please just talk to me, tell me what he said, and you will see that this is not real. It is all smoke and mirrors, something that Mycroft is very, very good at.'

Kate looked up at him, desperately wanting what he said to be true. 'Kate has agreed to talk to you, Sherlock,' John told him finally, but I'm going to mediate, to make sure that you both have a chance to talk, that this is fair, and that you don't blind her with logic.'

'I don't think that I'm capable of out-thinking Kate, even if I wanted to, John,' Sherlock said, sounding offended at the thought. 'She's perfectly capable of standing up for herself.'

'Not at the moment, and not when it comes to you,' John told him firmly. 'Come on, lets give this a try. Give you a chance to discuss this rationally and work out what is real, and what is just Mycroft's poison.' Then at Kate's sharp look. 'Mycroft doesn't have a good track record for sticking strictly to the truth at the best of times, Kate, you have to understand that.'

'You're biased,' Kate muttered, as she came to sit down on the chair around the table that John had pulled out for her.

'I'm trying hard not to be,' John told her. 'I want you to make the right decision - both of you, based on the truth though, and based on what is real.'

Sherlock sat himself down in the chair opposite Kate's, and when John went to make tea, took her hand gently in his, and said quietly. 'Kate, whatever you decide, I need you to know - I love you, in a way that I don't think that I've ever been capable of loving anyone else in my life before. I just need you to know that.'

She nodded, miserably. 'I do know,' she said quietly, wishing irrationally that this could all be over, or better still that she could just rewind time to last Friday evening, before Mycroft saw them, before this whole nightmare started. When she and Sherlock were happier than any two people had a right to be. How quickly it had all come crashing down.

John placed a cup in front of each of them, and then sat down at the end of the table. Kate quietly withdrew her hand from Sherlocks. John realised to his surprise that he was far more concerned about Kate's well-being in all of this than Sherlocks. If things didn't go the way that they hoped, then Sherlock would be frustrated and withdrawn for a while, of that he was sure. He would probably disappear for a few days, or retreat into silence, but eventually he would open his laptop, pick a likely crime scene and start working at an even more frenetic pace than normal. What this would do to Kate, still so fragile after all that she had been through with David was harder to predict. He had admired Kate for dealing with Sherlock's quirks so well, but what he had not appreciated until now was the extent to which she had also come to lean on him. The Kate that had emerged over the last few weeks was a very different one from the one that he remembered at work during his locum shifts in A&E. Less serious, more relaxed, more joyful even, as if she had suddenly remembered that life was for living. Sherlock would survive this, whatever happened, of that he was sure. The harm to Kate might be harder to repair.

'So I suggest that we start at the beginning,' he said finally, when neither Kate or Sherlock showed any signs of breaking the silence. 'Kate why don't you tell us what how Mycroft caught up with you?'

'But it started before that, didn't it' Sherlock interjected, his eyes never leaving Kate's face. 'Why don't you tell us exactly what Mycroft said to you when he came to see you at work. I presume that he came to see you with Lestrade?'

'Yes he did,' Kate said quietly. 'He asked if we were having a relationship. I told him that he knew full well that we were. Then he said - he said that he was worried that I would destroy you.'

Sherlock had his head slightly on one side, watching Kate with narrowed eyes, and the look that he had when he was trying to connect the facts on a case. 'Now why on earth would he say that?' he asked softly.

'He didn't say,' she told him. 'But he asked if I knew about your psychiatric history and the drugs, he said that he was concerned about your welfare, but not an awful lot else. Not then at any rate. Then there was a Trauma call, and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. I thought it was strange, but didn't think much more about it at the time. But the comment he made - about me destroying you, it just sat there at the back of my mind. I couldn't get it out of my head.'

'And so you were almost glad when he finally caught up with you last night,' Sherlock said in wonder. 'Clever, very clever. Sowing the seed and then allowing it time to grown before adding the fertiliser and the lies.'

'Sherlock,' John said warningly.

'No, it is clever John, you have to give him that. Its a classic manipulation technique, Kate. Start small, start gentle, and allow the subject's own mind to do much of the work for you, to start to break down the barriers. So how did he catch up with you last night?'

He's treating it like a case, John realised in wonder, watching him. Gathering information, breaking it all down, working out exactly what Mycroft has done and how. Because he's curious, or because thats the only way that he can cope with it? Maybe a little of both.

'I finished work before Alice,' Kate was saying, 'I came back here to check my post and pick up my mobile phone charger,' then with a look at Sherlock's expression, 'I know, I know, such a stupid way to get caught, but I wasn't going to be here more than ten minutes, I didn't think that even Mycroft could be that quick.'

'He would have been watching you, Kate,' Sherlock told her, 'from the moment that he knew that the car had gone. He was just waiting for the right moment. I'm sorry, I should have warned you.'

'I was stupid. I shouldn't have let him in. He had a police officer with him, but still. Thats effectively twice in three days that I let myself be conned into seeing him with that trick.' Kate fell silent, unsure how to continue.

'What did he say?' John asked gently.

'No, wait,' Sherlock interrupted, before Kate had a chance to speak. I think that I can guess. 'Can I tell you what I would have said, Kate, if I was Mycroft and if I was trying to convince you to end this relationship?'

Kate shook her head slightly, trying to work out how he could know, then nodded. 'Okay, if you think that you know.'

'If I was Mycroft,' Sherlock said, 'I would have found out enough about you to know that you are almost entirely selfless, and endlessly stubborn. So any suggestion that this relationship might be bad for you, that you might be too emotionally vulnerable to cope with my moods, that you might yourself end up damaged by it wouldn't work. He would be aware of that. What he probably be unaware of, because it would be beyond his comprehension, is exactly how deeply you trust me, and believe that I am what you think that I am - interesting given the way that the rest of the conversation must have gone, and the extent to which he must have swayed that.'

'I do trust you.' Kate said softly.

'And yet you still believe that I've kept things from you - and probably from John too.'

'Haven't you?' Kate asked.

'Nothing of relevance, no,' he told her, a little too emphatically.

'Of relevance to who - to you, or to us?' Kate asked quietly.

He frowned, and considered. 'I've never lied to you, Kate, I promise you that. And yet Mycroft has obviously led you to believe that I have.'

'He said that there were things that you hadn't told me - important things.'

'I know exactly what he would have told you. You mentioned that he was concerned my welfare, and that he told you that you would destroy me. As I said, its very clever, playing on your empathy and your concern for others. He has, in effect, used the extent to which he perceives that you care for me to provoke you into precisely the reaction that he wishes, namely to make you believe that our relationship is destructive, and that it will eventually lead to my descent into madness. How am I doing?'

'Pretty well,' Kate said staring at him in disbelief. 'How did you know?'

'I've spent the last four hours thinking about little else, Kate. Besides its precisely what I would have done had I been Mycroft. Tell me which diagnoses did he tell you about?'

The pain on Kate's face was enough to snap him out of interrogation mode.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' he said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it gently. 'I don't mean to hurt you, I know that its not your fault. Its just the only way that I can deal with this - with logic and deduction. What I really want to do,' he looked away and considered his impulses with interest, 'is to grab hold of you and to beg you to see sense, but I know that won't work.'

'And it wouldn't be logical,' Kate added, not without affection.'

'No. So he used my past psychiatric history to make you believe that you would destroy me. We'll come to that in a minute. I'm surprised that he didn't try the work tack, knowing what he must about your own work ethic and the strength of your moral code. If I had been him I might have tried telling you that you were a distraction, that you were stopping me from working at full capacity, I might even have tried the 'people will die' tack if I was feeling particularly dramatic.'

'He did try,' Kate said, finally allowing herself to look at him properly, grateful for the pressure of his hand in hers, 'well not the people will die bit, but he told me that I was a distraction, that I was stopping you from working. He said it as an aside, as if it wasn't important, but of course that worked away at my brain after he'd gone too.'

'Why didn't you phone me, Kate?' he whispered. 'Why didn't you give me a chance to explain?'

'You hate talking on the phone,' Kate told him.

'I would have made an exception for you,' he said with a sad smile. 'Besides we do talk on the phone sometimes.'

'Not since we've been going out,' Kate said. 'You used to phone me occasionally before, mainly when I hadn't responded to your texts, but I don't think that you've phoned me once since.'

'We've hardly been apart since, Kate, unless you've been at work, and then I've normally walked you there, and met you afterwards.'

'True,' she agreed, concentrating very hard on a mark on the table, which she was rubbing at with her finger. It was a hopeless task, she knew, like Psyche and her impossible task of separation; but there was no army of ants coming to help her sort out her thoughts. Just Sherlock and John and the soft ticking of this clock and the subtle hum of the traffic outside. This task was entirely hers.

'But I presume you didn't, because you didn't want to distract me again,' Sherlock was continuing. 'Yet again the very thing that you were concerned about added fuel to the fire.'

'I do distract you, though,' Kate said quietly, 'you can't deny that.'

'Is that so wrong?' he asked. 'Look at the way I used to work - not eating, not sleeping, often going round in circles for hours or days at a time, driving both John and I to exhaustion. You help, Kate, don't forget that. You're useful to me, and I like to think that I'm a little more measured in my approach now. I work more productively; you've convinced me that my brain runs on glucose,not on fresh air and needs sleep. I wouldn't have taken that from anybody else.'

'So I force you to stop from time to time?' Kate asked, still not sure if this was necessarily a good thing.

'No, you make me want to stop,' he said softly, with a smile which was almost a smirk, and Kate had to look away quickly, trying not to blush at the memories.

'But you don't have to take my word for it,' Sherlock was saying, 'why not ask John, he is a fairly objective observer of all of this after all.'

'You want me to comment on why Kate makes you stop in the middle of a case?' John asked, suddenly confused.

'No, of course not. I want you to comment on how Kate has affected my work. Am I more or less effective than I was now that I stop for sleep and food from time to time.'

'More effective, definitely,' John said, 'and I appreciate it too, Kate, for what its worth. Those three or four day marathons when the only sleep that I got was falling asleep with my head on the table used to almost kill me. I don't think that you're ever going to stop him pulling all nighters, but its definitely better. There's less pacing round the room and throwing bits of screwed up paper around, and more productive work. And as far as Mycroft's comments, implied or unspoken go, if there were genuinely lives at risk then none of us would sleep, but Jamie Drayton was already dead, we knew that. Sleeping on it to work out the next course of action lost us nothing.'

Kate nodded, relieved, and made the mistake of looking up at Sherlock, who looked as if he was fast slipping from logic into the shaking and begging stage. There was an uncertainty in his eyes that she had never seen before. 'I love you,' she said softly. 'this was never about that, its about what's best for you.'

'Do I not get a say in that?' he asked, then, 'Oh I see. Mycroft's pulled the vulnerable adult card, hasn't he. Told you that I'm incapable of managing my own affairs or making my own decisions.'

'Why on earth would he say that?' John exploded, unable to stop himself.

'Because to an extent its true,' Sherlock said calmly, not taking his eyes off Kate for a second 'at least on paper.'

He paused for a second, leaving John and Kate in shocked silence. 'Mycroft does have control of my financial affairs,' he said finally, 'he administers the Trust Fund from my father, he holds the deeds for this flat, and yours John. Under the terms of my father's will, I am not able to hold that money in my own right until I have proved myself to be compliant with medication and a psychiatrist has declared me to be in my right mind for a sustained period of time. I have never bothered to contest that.'

'So he always has control over you,' Kate said softly. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'Because I couldn't care less,' Sherlock told her, his face so open, so honest, that she wondered how she could ever have thought that he would keep anything from her. 'I'm not interested in money, Kate, you know that. The fact that Mycroft makes sure that there is money in my bank account, and pays off my credit cards and bills is an advantage to me.'

'An accountant could do that, while irritating you a lot less than Mycroft,' John pointed out. 'I could do that, for that matter, if thats what you wanted,' but Sherlock shook his head. 'Mycroft would never allow it. Besides I won't do him the pleasure of going to see a psychiatrist. I don't like people delving around inside my head and I'm certainly not going back on medication.'

'Tell me about that,' Kate said quietly. 'Mycroft mentioned manic depression. Not that it matters, but is that something that you've been diagnosed with in the past?'

John watched his friend as he slowly withdrew his hand from Kate's and stood up, straight-backed and withdrawn suddenly, and walked over to the window, watching the street below.

'Sherlock, you don't have to..' Kate was saying gently, concerned at his reaction.

'But I do,' he said, without turning round. 'If I want to keep you, I do have to talk about it. All of it.'

Damn Mycroft, John thought, not for the first time that day, for bringing him for this. For making him confront it, and making him lay himself out before Kate like this. And then he realised with wonder that four weeks into a relationship, Sherlock was going to do exactly that, was going to tell Kate things that he'd skirted around the outside of for over five years of friendship with John. Living in the same flat, working together day in, day out, and he'd never spoken of it, and yet he was prepared to tell Kate, and John by default. John sent a small prayer up to whatever deity might be up there, 'Please don't let Mycroft destroy this, don't let him drive away the first person, possibly the only person who Sherlock can be like this with.'

Sherlock was still silent though, considering. 'I don't know where to start,' he said finally.

'Start at the beginning,' Kate told him gently. 'You've told me about your parents, about growing up in that big house, about going away to prep school at seven, about your mothers death. From what I understand, there was no suggestion of mental illness until you were sixteen.'

'No.'

'And thats when you had a depressive episode and were sent away.'

'I was sectioned, Kate,' he said, walking back to the table and sitting down opposite her again. 'And it was psychotic depression. I heard voices, I had conspiracy theories. It took me months to recover.'

'Mycroft said that it was the destruction of a relationship that caused it - that there was a girl, and a relationship, and that when that fell apart, that you became ill.'

Sherlock stared at her in disbelief, and then, the tension broken, threw his head back and laughed. 'Is that what he said happened?' he said finally, 'What a beautiful and complex way of twisting the truth. No, Kate, thats not what happened at all. There was a girl, the daughter of our housekeeper as it happened, that was part of the problem. My father was furious at me for consorting with the staff. He was more furious that she knew that my father was beating me,' John opened his mouth to say something, but Sherlock silenced him with a wave of his hand. 'A relationship? I suppose you could term it that, but it was a very innocent one. It was friendship, close friendship, one of the first that I'd experienced, with some teenage groping thrown in, but very little else. It was the Easter holidays. My father had been finding me more infuriating ever since I'd returned home from school, and was almost looking for an excuse to act on that anger. Finding me with the housekeeper's daughter was the final straw.'

'So he beat you?' Kate asked.

'More viciously than he ever had before. My injuries sent me to bed for days. I had concussion, cracked ribs, fractured collarbone, I don't know what else. They called the local GP who could be relied on to keep his mouth shut and keep me out of hospital, but I didn't get better. I stopped eating and drinking, eventually I stopped talking too, other than to the voices that only I could hear. My father had me sectioned and sent to a psychiatric hospital. I would have been kept there permanently if he'd had his way.'

'You've told me about the hospital,' Kate said, 'and you stayed there until he had his stroke, and Mycroft became your guardian.'

'Precisely.'

John was still looking confused. 'Could we just stop and rewind for a moment?' he asked, 'because I'm trying to get the full picture here. Your father beat you - and by the sound of it we're not talking about the slipper for bad behavior. And more than once?'

'Fairly regularly from the ages of seven to fourteen,' Sherlock said calmly, less often after that, because I started to fight back.'

'You've never mentioned it,' John said, ' How could I not have known about something like that?'

'Its not relevant,' Sherlock said, finally turning to look at him, 'besides its not exactly the sort of thing that comes up easily in conversation.'

'But it does sort of explain a lot,' John said musingly.

'Which is precisely why I didn't tell you,' Sherlock said, an edge of irritation to his voice. 'I don't need your amateur psychoanalysis, John.'

'Calm down,' Kate told him quietly, his hand still firmly in hers. She hasn't given up on him, John thought watching them. Mycroft's lost. She's never going to walk away from this, no matter what her concerns may be. I wonder if she realises it yet.

Sherlock noticed too, and his eyes went back to hers with a smile. 'You still care, Kate, despite everything.'

'Of course I care, it was never about that. Tell me what happened when you got out of hospital.'

'Mycroft employed a private psychiatric nurse. She stayed with me for maybe six months. I stayed on medication for just over a year, then stopped it when I was at Cambridge. I couldn't cope with feeling so slow and distant all the time. It stopped me thinking. I haven't been back on it since.'

'And the drugs?' Kate asked.

'I dabbled, Kate,' he said with a sigh, 'for a while they controlled me, so I stopped taking them. I haven't taken anything that you could possibly disapprove of for at least three years, and it was very intermittent even then. Do you really think that I could do what I do if I was an addict? Do you think that I'm an addict?' He sounded exasperated, struggling to control his anger again.

'Are you angry at me, or at Mycroft?' Kate asked, kicking herself for provoking this reaction.

'Mycroft, always Mycroft,' he said looking down. 'I can't bear to have you thinking badly of me, even if it isn't true. How dare he try to destroy something that was so perfect.'

'That sounded almost like emotion,' Kate said, trying to lighten the mood.

'But thats exactly the point isn't it? Thats what Mycroft doesn't understand, and what I can't find a logical explanation for. You know me Kate, do you think that I've been lying to you, or hiding something from you for all of this time?'

Kate shook her head, looking down.

'Oh,' John said softly. 'I see. Clever Mycroft.'

Sherlock looked at him. 'What am I missing?' he snapped, obviously frustrated that John had worked out something that he hadn't.'

'Mycroft has used Kate's past history to sow doubts about you - he's used her insecurities to make her think that history is going to repeat itself. He is good, you're right.'

'He's one of the best at what he does,' Sherlock said dismissively. 'He can make you believe that black is white and up and down if you give him enough time. I assume that you're talking about David? Mycroft has somehow hinted at parallels to Kate's relationship with David. Of course.'

'My relationship with Sherlock is nothing like my relationship with David,' Kate said, confused.

'Of course not,' John said, 'but that was another situation when you thought that you knew somebody, and despite that, despite your ability to read people, you misread David. He betrayed your trust, he turned out to be a different person to who you thought that he was, and somewhere buried in your subconscious, maybe just maybe you think that the same could be true with Sherlock.'

'No,' Kate said shaking her head again.

'Yes,' Sherlock said, looking at John approvingly. 'It is clever, you're right. Did he even mention David?'

'Not once,' Kate said.

'Then its even more clever. Kate I have never lied to you. Everything that Mycroft has told you has been a brilliant mix of 98% truth, with lies or extrapolations beautifully layered through it. That is exactly how you feed people a lie, by mixing it up with so many genuine facts, that you can't dissect one from the other. I am not David, I could never treat you like that. So it comes to this. You know me, you know exactly who I am, and I'm not perfect, and sometimes my behavior will be erratic and unpredictable, but I will always be who I am. The question is, do you believe that?'

Kate looked up at him, at his beautiful face, so open, so honest, his eyes searching hers, worried now, desperately seeking the answer that he wanted, and reached up to stroke his cheek.

'I've been an idiot, haven't I?' she said finally.

'You have been deceived Kate, by Mycroft, not by me. You know who I am, just don't throw this away for something that might happen, thats all I'm asking. You won't destroy me, far from it. You might just be the one person on this planet who can save me. And as for pushing you away, why on earth would I ever, ever want to do that?'

Kate nodded slightly, then reached across the table, and oblivious to John, kissed him, until John cleared his throat and said loudly. 'Right, well, I'm glad we cleared that up. If you want me, I'll be in the kitchen, making more tea, and trying to stop being quite so green and prickly.'

'Sorry,' Kate said laughing, as she pulled away, wiping tears from her eyes, then stood up and let Sherlock pull her into his arms and hold her as if he would never let her go.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered, 'I don't know what I was thinking.'

'Mycroft has broken greater men - and women than you before,' Sherlock murmured, 'thats why I was trying so hard to keep you away from him.'

'What about you?' Kate asked, 'how can you be so sure that I won't damage you, that this is right. How come you don't have any doubts?'

'Because I know you,' he said, still holding her tight, 'you don't have it in you to hurt me, and as for being sure, its taken me thirty-four years to find someone that I felt this strongly about, I'm not going to let you go now.'

And that, Kate thought, was as much emotion as she was ever going to get out of Sherlock Holmes.


	18. Chapter 18

'Is it safe to come out yet?' John shouted from the kitchen.

'Yes,' Kate said, pulling back from Sherlock slightly, and smiling at John, as he stuck his head round the door to gauge the state of play.

'So no tearful break-up?' John asked.

'It would appear not,' Sherlock said, his voice heavy with relief, as he continued to hold tightly onto Kate.

'Good,' John grinned, 'you can't tell me how relieved I am to hear that. A heart-broken Sherlock might just have been more than I could have coped with.'

Sherlock gave him an appalled look, still not letting go of Kate.

'So am I safe to leave you to your reunion now? I ought to get the Freelander back to the garage.'

'Absolutely not,' Sherlock said, moving away from Kate a little, but still keeping hold of her hand, and sitting down heavily on the sofa, pulling her with him.

'What? Why not?' John asked.

'Because the second that you walk out of here alone, Mycroft will know that he's lost, thats why not, and its fairly obvious what next step in his plan will be.'

'Admit defeat gracefully and send a hamper to wish you and Kate every happiness in your life together?' John asked with mock seriousness, as he took a seat in the armchair.

Sherlock gave him a withering look.

'Just trying to break the tension,' John muttered under his breath, 'So come on, what will he do next?'

'Isn't it obvious?'

'Not to me - or to Kate by her expression.'

'Mycroft will be having Kate, and this flat watched, yes?'

John shrugged and nodded, 'I presume so.'

'So he will have seen us arrive, and will see you leave. The second that he sees you leave he will arrange a cause for concern call to the local police station. A neighbor I would imagine, reporting hearing raised voices and loud noises, an allegation of domestic violence would be taken very seriously given your previous history Kate. I give it fifteen minutes maximum between John walking out this door and the boys in blue arriving on your doorstep to take me down to the station for questioning, however much you protest my innocence. A night in the cells for me, and a chance for Mycroft to get a second crack at talking you round to his way of thinking.'

Kate looked stunned, 'He wouldn't, surely -' she started to say.

'Sherlock's right, he would I'm afraid,' John said with a shake of his head. 'Okay, so what do you suggest?'

'We need to get Kate back to Baker Street without Mycroft realising what we're doing, with enough room for doubt that he won't be entirely surprised when she's nowhere to be found when the police turn up there too.'

'And we do that by..' John prompted.

'A switch of course,' Sherlock was saying impatiently. 'Make it look as though Kate's got on a train somewhere for the weekend, meanwhile we get her back to Baker Street and keep her hidden there until the police have been and gone, then we can hole up there for the weekend, and keep Mycroft guessing.'

'You mean a double getting on the train, instead of Kate? How on earth are you going to arrange that?'

'Its already arranged,' Sherlock said with a hint of smugness, 'when I wasn't buying cigarettes,' then, 'Homeless Network,' to John's confused look, 'Well, ex-homeless network, but they'll get in touch with her. Someone who owes me a favour, and looks not unlike Kate, at least from a distance. Same height, same build. She's meeting us at Paddington in 45 minutes, she'll switch clothes with Kate and then take her phone onto the train to Cornwall. Tracking the phone alone should be enough to convince Mycroft.'

'I have to give her my phone?' Kate asked in a small voice. She loved her phone. It was out of date, and slow, but it had her entire life on it.

'Back it up on your computer before you go and I'll get you a new one before the end of the weekend,' Sherlock told her distractedly. 'You should get it back eventually, it just needs to go on a little journey first. Besides, its out of date. You'll be better off with the new version.'

Kate found herself smiling at him, despite her best efforts.

'What?' he asked.

'Techie geek,' she muttered, then when he failed to respond, 'So how do I get back to Baker Street without being spotted?'

'Clothes switch, I told you. Wear something that you don't mind lending to your double for a few days, she'll lend you her coat and hat, so you look like her after the switch. Don't worry,' he said, 'she's not homeless anymore, I told you. She's sorted her life out, well as sorted as an advertising executive ever can be, perfectly respectable, I promise you.'

'Just checking,' Kate said lightly. 'So I switch clothes with her and then head back to Baker Street, separately from you I presume.'

'Yes, but via an indirect route,' Sherlock told her, 'just in case. That will be the danger time, but as long as you don't talk to anyone and don't get into any strange cars you should be fine. Mycroft is unlikely to abduct you in broad daylight, even if he does track you down. If we travel back on the same train, you're more likely to be spotted. Better to divide their resources.'

'But won't he have 221B watched too?'

'Of course,' Sherlock said impatiently, 'thats why you'll have to go up the fire escape. I'll take out the security cameras at the back of the building and signal to you when its safe to come up.'

'Red flag from the window?' Kate asked with a smile.

'I was thinking more of letting the fire escape down,' he told her, 'its a little less obvious.'

Kate nodded, 'Exactly when did you work all of this out?' she asked.

'I told you, when John sent me out to buy cigarettes, now come on, I reckon that we've got another twenty minutes at the outside before Mycroft loses his patience and sends someone to check on whats going on, and you still need to pack.'

'Pack? Why do I need to pack? Half of my clothes are at yours already.'

'Because you need to make it look as if you're going away for the weekend,' he explained, 'plus there may be things that you don't want Mycroft to find when he searches the flat. Your laptop and passport for a start, plus anything that you need for work. You won't be able to come back here for a few weeks, although John can come and pick up your post. Put it all in that black rucksack of yours. Amy, your double is going to bring a black rucksack with her too to make the switch easier. Yours is small enough to fit into another bag to disguise it. Amy will bring that with her.'

'You really have thought of everything haven't you?' Kate said dazedly, sinking back against the sofa. John glanced at her with concern, registering her exhaustion, but Sherlock for once was ahead of him.

'I'm sorry, Kate,' he said, pulling her towards him and kissing the top of her head. 'But I don't see any other way forward. Unless you want to go to Alice's and tell Mycroft when he turns up that its all over, of course.'

'I want to be with you,' she said firmly, looking up at him, then, 'Come on, lets get this over with.'

'Where are you going?' he asked as she headed into the bedroom.

'To pack, as instructed,' she called back over her shoulder.


	19. Chapter 19

Ten minutes later they all left the flat together. John peeled off at the end of the road to pick up the land rover and drive it back to the garage, while Sherlock and Kate carried on towards the tube station, not touching, not speaking, trying to look like two people who had just finished a relationship. Kate had to bite her lip to stop from smiling. 'Keep walking' Sherlock murmured as they turned the corner, and Kate became aware of blue lights flashing behind them outside her flat.

'Your timings out' she muttered.

'Only be about three minutes' Sherlock retorted, looking at his watch, risking a sideways look at her, then, 'Come on, or you'll miss your train.

Reaching the tube it should have been only three short stops on the Bakerloo line to Paddington, but instead Sherlock took them via the Edgware Road, and through a bewildering series of quick switches and last minute train changes, until they lost the two agents tailing them with surprising ease. 'Not up to Mycroft's usual standard,' Sherlock commented as they resisted the temptation to wave at the second tail as the tube pulled out of the station, leaving him standing bewildered behind, still searching for them on the crowded platform.

'Tell me again why we're doing this, when we're going to let them catch up with us at Paddington station anyway?' she asked him.

'To piss Mycroft off of course,' Sherlock said, as if it was obvious. 'We want him to see you at the station, but I've no intention of making life easy for him.'

Arriving at Paddington, he steered her towards the ticket office, of course. No automated ticket machine for her, there had to be a witness to her purchase of a train ticket, and there had to be witnesses to their farewell before she got onto the train. Ever the gentleman, Sherlock paid for her ticket all the way to Penzance and handed it to her gravely.

The train board told her that she had less than ten minutes to go before the train departed.

'Time for the switch,' he murmured, 'we've got witnesses, at two o'clock and nine o'clock from where you're standing, so this is where we say goodbye. Then you head into the cloakrooms, last cubicle on the left and Amy will be waiting. The door will be locked when you get there, so you need to give three knocks and she'll let you in. Switch clothes, let her leave first, then give it a few minutes and you can head back to Baker Street by the route we discussed.'

Leaving him there on the station concourse, was genuinely painful, and watching his slumped shoulders as he walked away from her, she brushed away a few genuine tears, then headed speedily into the public toilets to continue the plan. The door of the disabled toilet answered to her knock, and there was a girl in her late twenties, who grinned at her, and held a finger to her lips to indicate silence, before stripping off her Parka and grey woolen cap and handing them to Kate, who in turn handed the girl her own black coat and striped scarf. Distinctive enough to be easily recognised, that was the theory. With her hair bundled up in the cap, she did indeed look like the girl's double. The girl opened a black kit bag, pulling out a black rucksack almost identical to Kate's, and handed the kitbag over to Kate to stuff her own bag into. Kate handed over her phone and the girl nodded her approval and turned to leave. 'Good Luck,' she whispered.

'Wait,' Kate said, with a hand on her arm, 'will you really go to Cornwall?'

'I'm doubling back at Devon,' she whispered, 'keeping them guessing with another change, its all arranged.'

'Why are you doing this?' Kate asked curiously.

'Sherlock saved my life,' the girl told her seriously, 'besides I'm always up for an adventure, and this definitely qualifies.' She grinned at Kate. 'Good Luck,' she said again, and then she was gone. Kate timed five minutes on her watch, trying to stop her feet from tapping with agitation on the floor, and then followed her out.

...

The observers that Sherlock had pointed out before seemed to have taken the bait and followed the girl, and she headed for the tube trying to look as if she had all of the time in the world, then took the route that Sherlock had suggested. District and Circle line to Notting Hill, central line to Oxford Circus and then deliberately losing herself in the Friday evening crowds, on Oxford Street travelled on foot via Seymour Place, to the back of Baker Street, where she lingered as instructed by the bench in the small patch of green that it would be charitable to describe as a garden.

There was no red flag, but the fire escape was down, and John waved a tea towel at her through his kitchen window when she looked across, then reached through with a grin to take her bag from her. 'See you in a bit' he whispered, as she made her way up the fire escape.

As she reached the top, a hand shot through to help her climb through the window into the flat, and Sherlock pulled the curtains behind her to obscure the view from the back and then pulled her close, his face flooded with relief. 'That took longer than I thought,' he said, 'Any sign of Mycroft?'

'None,' Kate told him. 'The crowds on Oxford Street were mad, sorry, people starting their Christmas shopping early, I suppose, but I don't think anyone could have followed me through that.'

She was shaking slightly, from adrenaline rather than fear. 'Are you okay?' he asked, searching her face for the answer as he smoothed her hair back behind her ear.

She nodded, then grinned at him. 'Is it wrong to have found that fun?' she asked, 'tell me is your life always like this?'

He considered, 'Sometimes yes. Do you mind?'

She shook her head, 'not at all,' she said, leaning in to kiss him.

...

A short forty minutes later, and Sherlock stepped back from the window where he had been watching, playing his violin. 'Kate' he whispered. She saw blue lights flashing had been quicker than she had expected. Down the fire escape she went and through the window into Mrs Hudson's old flat below, where John was waiting. He shut the window and the curtains behind her. They heard the bell ring and then footsteps on the stairs leading up to 221B above.

'Now what?' whispered Kate

'Now we wait. Tea?'

Kate laughed, despite herself, then winced and looked upstairs. She could hear Sherlock shouting 'Is he acting, or genuinely pissed off, do you think?'

'A bit of both, I think' said John

More shouting, and the sound of footsteps moving across the ceiling, as the police were presumably searching presumably the flat. She still found it staggering that they would have discovered the deception so quickly, or were they just double-checking as Sherlock had predicted.

Kate rested her head on her hands as they sat at the table. 'You okay?' John asked.

'Yes.' She smiled at him 'I'm fine. Its just been a very, very long day'

'For what its worth, I think that you made the right decision' said John quietly. She looked at him in surprise. John was usually a man of few words and little emotion. 'He's a good man, Kate, despite what most people think of him, and God knows he needs you'

She smiled at him 'Thank you,' she said. 'That means a lot.'

They sat in silence, drinking their tea, wary of being heard from upstairs, until they heard feet moving towards the door and then finally a door shut upstairs. Kate and John exchanged a glance, and she went to wait by the window. When they heard the sound of the violin starting again upstairs she climbed through the window and up the fire escape, reaching the window of 221B just as a knock came on John's door.

'Just a minute' he shouted, hastily loading the telltale two cups into the dishwasher, then listened for the sound of the window upstairs closing before opening the door to the waiting policeman.

Upstairs, Sherlock silently pulled Kate onto the sofa and held her tight. She could feel her heart thumping as she listened to the voices downstairs. What if they came back? But then he began kissing her, silently showing his relief at her safe return to him, and her anxiety melted away almost as quickly as it had come. Dimly she was aware of the sound of the police leaving John's flat some time later, but by that time her mind was firmly on other things.

Keeping to the plan, John told the police officers that yes, he had been at Kate's flat with Sherlock Holmes earlier; no, he had never seen any indication of violence on his friend's part; yes as far as he was aware Kate had left the flat with Sherlock, planning to go to Paddington to take a train down to visit a friend in Cornwall to think things over. The friend, he told them was called Helen; no, he didn't know her surname, but Kate had said that she lived in a cottage close to the beach in possibly Port Isaac, but he wasn't entirely sure.

He thought that Kate's friend Alice might know the friend's surname, and he had her number, but strangely enough when they phoned Alice, she was unsure of the friends surname either. An old University friend of Kate's, she said, not really a friend of hers, but yes, Kate had texted her to say that she was going to Cornwall for the weekend.

Alice had, of course, been well versed by Kate earlier, immediately before she had left her flat for Paddington, Sherlock leaving nothing to chance, and played her part well. The police officers seemed convinced and finally left, leaving John with a contact number to call if he heard from Kate, and then they were gone and John hoped against all rational knowledge of Mycroft Holmes that this might be the end of it for a few days at least.

A text from Kate's phone to his several hours later, 'Arrived safe, please tell Sherlock,' surprised him until he realised that it was sent by Amy to confirm the presence of her phone in Cornwall. Hadn't she been going to stop in Devon? Change in plan then.

He forwarded the message to Sherlock without comment, aware that Sherlock's phone might well have been hacked by Mycroft, and phoned the contact number he had been given earlier to let them know that he had heard from Kate.

Then he opened a well-earned bottle of wine and settled down to enjoy the rest of his evening, keeping one ear open for knocks on the street door that might necessitate the use of the fire escape all over again, but they never came.


	20. Chapter 20

Saturday morning found John back at 221B, armed with the Saturday papers, and ready to help Sherlock confuse issues further for Mycroft and his employees. Kate helped them for the first couple of hours, mainly by making endless cups of tea, but eventually frustrated by her inability to be able to do anything else useful, she retreated to the sofa in the living room with the papers.

'Kate okay?' John asked quietly, some time later, when they reach a break in creating false trails. Amy had handed Kate's phone on to a friend who lived near Penzance, and that was leading the police a merry dance round Cornwall, as it was passed from one person to another, intermittently being turned off to muddy the trail. False sightings on cctv and a myriad of other ruses were also helping to satisfy Sherlock's need to extract revenge on Mycroft.

'Not as okay as she's pretending to be, no.' Sherlock sounded distracted and spoke without looking up from the computer screen. John waited patiently until finally he closed the lid of his computer and turned to face him.

'What do you want me to say?' he asked abruptly. 'Do I feel guilt and remorse at what I've put Kate through over the last few days, yes of course I do. Do I think that she's made the right decision, yes I do. Am I aware that this is selfish? Yes, I am.'

John looked at his friend cautiously. How he had changed since he had first met him. He had been so cold, so aloof, so apparently uncaring. 'Emotion,' he said lightly.

'Intriguing isn't it?' Sherlock paused, 'I find it - unhelpful, the majority of the time. I know the logical solution to any given situation, but emotion interferes with that.'

'Welcome to the human race,' John said softly, as Sherlock peered past him to the living room, before getting up and walking over to the sofa. Kate, John realised, had fallen asleep there while reading the paper, exhausted by the events of the last few days. He watched as his friend walked over to her, stood staring down at her for a long moment, then pulled a blanket off the back of the sofa over her and came back to the kitchen.

'What?' he asked crossly at John's expression of amusement.

'Just getting used to the new caring you, thats all,' John said with a small shake of his head.

'Love, John,' Sherlock said with a frown. 'It's a complicated emotion, and not one that I fully understand.'

'Love is when you care more for others than for yourself,' John replied promptly, intrigued by his friend's reaction.

'Or is it more selfish than that? The realisation that your own happiness is dependent on that of another person. Do you care about them for their own sake or your own?' Sherlock asked, trying to analyse even this. 'If I genuinely cared more for her than myself then maybe I would just have let her go, kept her safe, carried on as before.'

'Have you really never been in love before?' John asked curiously.

'Apparently not,' Sherlock said briskly, opening his laptop once again. Uncomfortable with the conversation, John realised as he grinned at his friend and went back to his own manipulation of cctv images, designed to place Kate in half a dozen Cornish towns within the space of a few hours.

Some time later they were disturbed by the ringing of Sherlock's mobile. 'Lestrade' he said to John, as he answered it.

Greg Lestrade sounded weary. 'I have absolutely no idea what you've been up to, Sherlock, but I've been called into work today to deal with a sudden influx of phone calls that we've had, all insisting that we come and raid your flat to see if you've either got Kate held hostage there, or if her body is stashed under your floorboards. It's getting hard to keep hedging, so unless you want a dawn raid, then I strongly suggest that you get Kate to contact me to let me know that she is perfectly fine, and in a place which mysteriously has no mobile reception, explaining why she isn' t answering her phone. This is Mycroft's doing I take it?'

'Of course.'

'I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that it would be wise if the phone that she called from could be tracked by a bit of internet wizardry to Cornwall, and not to 221B Baker Street.'

Sherlock gave a derogatory snort. 'It will be trackable to Kate's present location, of course.'

'I sincerely hope not.' Greg Lestrade replied. then, 'Mycroft's not going to let this one go Sherlock, you do realised that.'

'And nor am I,' Sherlock replied thoughtfully as he put the phone down.

Less than five minutes later John's own phone rang, 'Greg,' he said as he picked up the phone. 'How are you?'

'Slightly concerned for some reason,' he answered. 'I presume that Kate is with you and not lying dead in a ditch somewhere, only -'

'She's fine, Greg, she's safe,' John told him. 'I'll make sure that she phones you later.'

'Right, just checking,' Lestrade said with a frown.

'Has Mycroft actually phoned you?' John asked curiously.

'Not yet,' Lestrade told him, 'and I'd rather know as little as possible about this whole thing, to be honest. You know how good he is at extracting information from people. He's on a real mission, John. What the hell is all that about?'

'Control, I imagine,'John said musingly. 'Whatever it is, I wish that he'd just leave the whole thing alone.'

...

The sky was fading to grey by the time Kate woke up. Sherlock put down the paper that he had been reading from the comfort of the armchair and smiled at her.

'Morning,' he said.

'What time is it?'

'Half three or there abouts'

'You let me sleep nearly all day.'

'You looked as if you needed it. John and I have been busy laying false trails.' He paused for a moment, then said, 'Lestrade phoned. You need to phone him to confirm your safety, or we're due another visit apparently. I've set up a false track on the computer whenever you're ready. It will make the spare mobile sound as if its coming from Cornwall.'

'What do I need to say?'

'Just that you're safe, that you're staying with a friend and that you'll be back at work on Monday.'

'That simple?' Kate said lightly.

'I doubt it somehow,' Sherlock said, coming and sitting next to her on the sofa as she swung her legs to the floor to make room for him. He took her hand in his, turning it over, analysing it, tracing the lines on her palm with his finger.

'You're worried.' she said. It was a statement, not a question.

He smiled, still focusing on her hand, 'Never go out with an empath if you want to keep secrets from them,' he said.

'Why are you worried?' she asked. 'I'm not going to change my mind you know.'

'And maybe thats what concerns me,' he said.

'Sherlock, I-'

'No, let me finish. I don't mind that you have doubts, Kate, doubt is sometimes good. Doubt enables you to weigh up the evidence for and against a decision.'

'You never have doubt,' she said.

'Not until yesterday, no.'

'Is that whats bothering you? That you couldn't be sure what my decision was going to be?' She paused, as if something was only just occurring to her. 'But you made all those plans; the double, the train to Cornwall, my route back to Baker Street, all of it. You made those plans before even I knew what I wanted to do. You knew what my decision would be before I did.'

He looked at her sharply, 'But thats exactly it, Kate,' he said. 'I didn't know. I had doubt too, but more than that it was the fear, the fear of loss, that was more than I could cope with. I had to believe that you would make the right decision, anything else was too painful to contemplate. I made those plans to keep my mind occupied, to stop me from doing what I really wanted to do.'

'Confronting Mycroft?'

'Thumping Mycroft was more what I had in mind, but yes.'

'Why won't he leave this alone?'

'I've told you - control, power, an inability to believe that I can lead my own life, make my own decisions.'

'Jealousy? Maybe?' Kate proposed hesitantly. 'That you might come to depend on someone other than him.'

'Jealousy would suggest love, I'm not entirely sure that Mycroft is capable of either.'

'He might have said the same about you, a few weeks ago.'

Sherlock stared at her, a hand coming up to stroke her hair and then cupped her cheek in his palm. 'How do you do that?' he asked.

'Do what?'

'See through people like that.'

'Years of practice,' she said, kissing him. Then, 'Don't feel guilty about this Sherlock. This is my decision and its the right one, for both of us. You deserve a little happiness, we both do.'


	21. Chapter 21

Mycroft's interference had caused a shift in Sherlock and Kate's relationship, John observed, but in precisely the opposite way to the one that had been intended. They seemed more aware of each other than they had been before, constantly checking the other's presence, frequently touching, as if they could not bear to be physically separated. What Mycroft had achieved, was to shake them out of their complacency in their relationship, of that first instinct of casually assuming that the other person was always going to be there, and into a state of constant delight at each other's presence. It was both gratifying, and if he was honest, slightly uncomfortable to be an outside witness to. For the first time, John felt like an intruder, and despite their protestations had left them alone for the majority of the weekend, pleading the need to catch up on his blog and a review article that he was writing on the back of the conference that he had attended.

Heading to the supermarket on Sunday afternoon with a list from Kate, he was just wondering about the wisdom of agreeing to have dinner at 221B that evening, when a familiar black limousine caught up with him just as he was crossing the road to head into the shop. He groaned. How could he have assumed that he would be immune from Mycroft's interference?

'John,' came a voice from inside the open window. 'I wonder if I might have a word.'

'Do I have a choice?' John asked mildly as the driver silently opened the door for him and he reluctantly slid into the seat beside Mycroft.

'You could just have phoned,' he said calmly.

'You wouldn't have answered,' Mycroft said dismissively. 'I assume that my brother is too preoccupied with Kate to be answering his own phone.'

'Kate's in Cornwall,' John said automatically.

'I sincerely doubt it,' Mycroft said, 'and unless your cooking skills have improved considerably I imagine that she is cooking dinner for the the three of you this evening,' he continued glancing down the shopping list that Kate had written for John and that he had somehow lifted from John's pocket without him noticing.

'Was pickpocketing actually on the syllabus at that posh school of yours, of was it an after-school activity?' John asked sarcastically, holding out his hand for the list.

'You might care to return this to Kate also,' Mycroft said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out Kate's phone, before handing it to John. 'I imagine that she'll need it for her on-call tomorrow evening, and it will save my brother the expense of buying her another one.'

'Do you never get bored with always being right?' John asked. 'How long have you known?'

'The rigged cctv footage on the fire escape was a clue, tracking down her phone in the property of a nineteen year old boy who had stopped on his mission to sink a few pints with his friends was almost conclusive, but tracing her pager down to 221B Baker street was the conclusive piece of evidence .'

John groaned despite his best effort. Her pager, of course. It had come back to the flat with her work kit, and none of them had even considered that this too could be traced.

'It was an impressive attempt at deception, all things considered,' Mycroft added almost as an afterthought.

'Why can't you just leave them alone, Mycroft,' John sighed.'Kate is undoubtably the best thing that had ever happened to your brother. Why on earth do you feel the need to interfere with that?'

'I am concerned, John.'

'Concerned about what, Mycroft? That he might be happy? That he might finally have something in his life other than work?'

'She is a distraction, John. Given the events of the last few days I would have thought that you would have been the first person to realise that.'

John stared at him in amazement, then anger rising, silently felt for the door handle. Unsurprisingly the door was locked, and the door handle clicked uselessly in his grasp.

'I suggest that you let me out of this car, Mycroft,' he said quietly, 'Or so help me, I am extremely likely to hit you, and damn the consequences.'

'Anger is an unhelpful emotion, John. Sherlock has abandoned a case without completing it. You can't deny that.'

'It was a set-up!' John shouted. 'You deliberately led us on a wild goose chase to keep Sherlock away from Kate.

'It was a genuine case,' Mycroft continued calmly, 'which I required Sherlock's assistance with. I threw in a few false trails as a distraction when it suited my purposes admittedly, but I still require his data from the case, and yet he is failing to respond to any of my attempts to contact him.'

'Do you blame him?' John asked, his voice rising incredulously, 'Jesus, Mycroft for an intelligent man you really can be incredibly stupid. You have tried to take away from Sherlock the first person in years, possibly in his life that he can really connect with. More to the point you have caused pain to someone who he genuinely loves - oh don't pull that face because I'm talking about emotion. He loves her, Mycroft, and she loves him back and God help them both they are as perfectly suited for each other as any two people that I've ever met, so why can't you just keep your pointy nose out of it and leave them alone?'

There was a long pause, before Mycroft asked calmly, 'Is that your professional judgement, John, ot your personal one.'

'Both. But while we're talking about professional over personal, perhaps you would like to consider how useful your brother's unique skills have been to you on more than one occasion. If you persist in this course of action, do you really think that he's ever going to agree to work for you again?'

'And you?' Mycroft asked, cooly. 'What would your own decision be on that?'

'I am Sherlock's friend and his colleague, and I will follow his decision.'

'And you would not consider talking him out of this insane liason, I presume?'

'You really haven't heard a word that I've said, have you,' John said, exasperated as always by Mycroft's detachment.

'On the contrary, Dr Watson, I have heard every word that you have said,' Mycroft said softly, as the door was opened by the chauffeur at a nod from Mycroft, allowing John to leave the car. Yet again, John was left standing in amazement on the pavement as the car sped away.


	22. Chapter 22

Abandoning his attempts at shopping, John headed straight back to Baker Street and was knocking on the door to 221B less than ten minutes later.

'Mycroft catch up with you already?' Sherlock asked calmly as John stormed into the flat and opened his mouth to let out a tirade of abuse at Mycroft.

'Why do you both always have to be right?' John exploded. 'One know it all Holmes brother is quite enough for one day, thanks, without you joining in.'

Sherlock tried to look wounded, but Kate interceded. 'What happened, John?' she asked.

'Mycroft happened, thats what. He gave me this to return to you.' He took Kate's phone out of his coat pocket and neatly threw it across to her. 'He knows that you're here, Kate. He knows that we rigged the security camera onto the fire escape; he knows about the double; he tracked you via your hospital pager.' There was an edge of exasperation to his voice as he spoke.

'Well what did you expect?' Sherlock asked calmly. 'Mycroft may be many things, but he's not stupid. He was always going to work it out eventually. I'm impressed that it took him so long.'

'It's not a game, Sherlock!' John exploded.

'But it is, John, thats exactly what it is. For Mycroft anyway.'

Kate was studying her phone, turning it over, looking for signs that it had been tampered with. 'Can I turn this on?' she asked.

'By all means,' Sherlock said. 'Mycroft knows where you are now, anyway. He will have been through your phone, no doubt, but you might as well use it.'

'Will he be listening to my calls?'

'Possibly, but I doubt it.'

'Then I'm going to text Alice, let her know that I'm okay. She'll be worried,' she said, walking out of the room towards the bedroom both for a bit of privacy, and to avoid the confrontation that she sensed brewing between John and Sherlock.

John watched her go in silence. 'Do you think that this is fair on her?' he asked quietly.

'She's fine John. In fact she was the one who asked me to stop playing around with false trails and to let Mycroft work it out.'

'Really? How come?' John was genuinely surprised.

'She doesn't like playing games,' Sherlock said, staring at the now closed door to the bedroom. 'And she doesn't want to come between me and Mycroft. Now why don't you tell me precisely what Mycroft said?'

John sighed. 'That he'd been trying to contact you to get the data from the case, which by the way he still claims that he needs; that he knew that Kate was here; that she was a distraction; that he was concerned. That pretty much sums it up. Oh and that she must be cooking us dinner tonight, judging by the shopping list that he lifted from my pocket.'

'That would explain the taxi then,' Sherlock said lifting the curtain to look out of the window, from where, John realised he could hear the humming of a car engine waiting outside, and then the slam of a car door, closely followed by a ring on the doorbell.

'Delivery for John Watson,' the disembodied voice at the end of the entry phone said, and John wearily went down to accept the two Sainsburys bags of shopping from the taxi driver.

'Is there any point in asking who this came from?' he asked.

'Lady said that you'd forgotten your shopping and asked me to deliver it,' the taxi driver said with a shrug. 'Good tipper, though.'

'I'm sure that she was,' John said as he took the bags inside. Mycroft getting Anthea to do his dirty work him again, no doubt.

'Your brother really is the limit,' John muttered to Sherlock as he dropped the bags onto the kitchen table with a bang, and began foraging inside them. 'I thought that he gave the list back - hang on he did, so how on earth did he manage -' John checked the items in the bag against the list. 'To remember everything on the list? Photographic memory?'

'Or photo on one of his many surveillance cameras,' Sherlock said calmly, 'although Mycroft does have near perfect recall, we both do.'

'Oh look he's thrown in a nice bottle of red as well, how charitable of him,' John said sarcastically, banging it back down on the table. 'Does that brother of yours ever stop trying to control you?'

'Apparently not,' Sherlock said as Kate came back into the room, staring perplexedly at her phone. 'Who was at the door?' she asked.

'Sainsbury's delivery,' Sherlock said, 'courtesy of my dear brother.'

'Seriously?' Kate said, looking through the food that John had unpacked onto the kitchen table. 'That might explain this then.' She showed Sherlock her text message, 'I hope that you have a pleasant evening,' it said. The sender had come up as Mycroft Holmes.

'He must have put his number into my phone,' she said. 'But it feels a little like an apology - or an attempt at a truce at the very least. If he really wanted to put a spanner in the works he would have sent the police back round, surely.'

'Perhaps, perhaps not,' Sherlock said, looking as if his mind was turning over very fast, assessing all of the possible explanations.

'Maybe he really does need the information that we turned up in Wales,' John said. 'Why not just send it to him in return for him staying away from Kate? That would be Mycroft's kind of deal, surely.'

'And you really think that will work?' Sherlock asked John incredulously.

'Its worth a try, isnt it?' Kate asked, and then smiling slightly at Sherlock's scowl, went across to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, his arm coming up automatically to encircle her. 'Please, Sherlock, can't we at least try,' she asked, resting her head against his shoulder for a moment. 'Why not tell him that you'll send him the data if he promises to leave us alone.'

'Fine, but if he thinks that I'm doing any more of his dirty work for him after what he did to us in Wales then he's got another thing coming,' Sherlock said, tapping out a text, then heading to his desk and flipping open his laptop. 'I'll send him the information, for what its worth,' he said, his fingers a blur as he typed out a rapid email, 'but that's it.'

Kate and John made the mistake of looking at each other and then had to look away quickly. Kate could see John's shoulders shaking as he tried not to laugh at Sherlock's disgruntlement.

'It's not funny,' Sherlock said, without looking up or pausing from his typing.

'It's a bit funny,' John told him. 'Wine, Kate? Courtesy of Mycroft?' he asked, before starting to laugh in earnest at Kate's expression when she took in the label on the bottle.

'He didn't get this from Sainsbury's,' she said with a look of amazement. 'Does he keep a supply in his boot just in case?'

'With Mycroft, who knows. He's probably got an entire climate adjusted wine cellar in there,' John told her solemnly, as he opened the bottle and poured them each a glass.

* * *

><p>Is this the end of the story? Possibly of this one, although its far from the end of Sherlock and Kate's story. If you've enjoyed this, then Danger Nights is the next part of their story, followed by Consequences and then Madness and Memory Part 1 - Descent , and I suspect that I'll be writing Sherlock and Kate stories for some time to come.<p>

Thank you for reading, and special thanks to those people who have left such lovely reviews. Some of the reviews have changed the direction of the story, so please - keep them coming. They always make me stop and think, and without them this story would have been far less interesting x


	23. Chapter 23

Inspired partly, I have to confess, by the recent snowy weather we've had here. But I wanted to finish this story properly, and as Kate and Sherlock got together in the autumn it would be coming up to Christmas after all. Plus I don't think we've seen Sherlock in the snow yet, and its a lovely image. More soon!

* * *

><p>It was snowing. Thick white flakes were falling by the time Kate emerged from work that evening into a world that was suddenly startlingly clean and white. It looked like a scene from a postcard, she thought, as she stopped outside the ambulance bay to take it in, and then turned like a child, arms outstretched, enjoying the feeling of the snow on her face, then taking in the christmas card prettiness of the scene before her. Even East London looked beautiful in the snow.<p>

A tall figure in a dark coat was crunching across the snow towards her, smiling at her exuberance. She grinned at him, unembarrassed by her simple pleasure, and instead let him pull her into a kiss, his lips surprisingly warm against her cold ones. The snow flakes had settled in his hair as he stood, coming down more heavily now. He looked round at the snow covered ground and smiled again. 'Its beautiful,' he said. 'it makes everything look so pure, so different.'

'I thought that you'd hate snow,' she said as she slipped her hand into his and they walked slowly back towards the main road.

'Why?' he asked. 'Its beautiful, look at it.'

'I thought you would say it was too cold, too inconvenient.'

'Snow is inconvenient?' he asked, raising an eyebrow at her, still smiling.

'No, I think that its beautiful too, she said,'but its inconvenient for some people. Hang on.'

She stopped to talk to a huddle of blankets wedged into a dry spot under the stairs down to the residential street they were about to walk onto, then just as quickly moved on.

'What were you saying to him?' Sherlock asked.

'Telling him that there's an emergency shelter in the church hall down the road. They'll be beds there for as long as the snow lasts and it stays this cold. If he stays where he is then he's going to get hypothermia, especially if he drinks the rest of that bottle of vodka.'

'You're just trying to avoid work for the morning,' Sherlock said dryly.

'Of course. Hypothermic arrests can go on for hours. After all you're not dead until you're warm and dead,' she said sarcastically, then, 'Why are we talking about this anyway?'

'You started it, trying to save the world,' he said distractedly, then, 'It's Christmas soon.'

'Three weeks,' Kate said with a small nod.

'Are you seeing your parents? You haven't said.'

'And you haven't worked it out?' Kate teased. 'Thats not like you.'

'I try not to second guess you, Kate, you know that. I'm told that its annoying.' His lips had curved up into a smile.

'But you've worked it out anyway.'

'I was rather hoping,' he said softly, 'that given recent events you might choose to spend Christmas here - with me. I imagine that you've volunteered to work to give yourself an excuse. Rather arrogantly perhaps, I thought - I hoped, that you might prefer to avoid the inevitable conflict with your family, and stay here instead.'

'You thought correctly,' Kate said lightly, not looking at him. 'I'm working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and I was going to volunteer for Boxing Day too. I can go and see my sister in the New Year. My little nieces will be disappointed, but I'm posting their presents to them. My parents will pretend to be disappointed, but will secretly be relieved not to have to make polite conversation with me, while avoiding all topics concerning David, weddings or babies.'

Sherlock's grip on her hand tightened slightly. 'Don't be too noble, Kate,' he said quietly. 'Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is enough, surely. Save Boxing Day for me, will you?'

'I thought that you didn't celebrate Christmas,' she said softly.

'I said that I didn't celebrate it with Mycroft, I never said that I didn't celebrate it at all.'

'Have you heard from Mycroft?' Kate asked, glad for an opportunity to discuss the subject.

'Not a word. He's being suspiciously quiet. But the last email that he sent me wrapping up the Drayton case was sent from a server in the Far East, so I suspect that he's still out of the country.'

'He's been very - restrained,' Kate said, choosing her words carefully. 'Does this mean that we're off the hook?'

'With Mycroft who knows?' Sherlock said with a sigh. 'I suspect that it means that he's lulling us into a false sense of security and still plotting, but I'm bored of trying to work out what he's going to do next, Kate. I know now what you want, and what I want, and that's enough.' He smiled at her again. 'Surprised?'

'Surprised that you're content to live in the moment instead of occupying that brain of yours with contemplating all the multiple possibilities of Mycroft's plotting as usual? You have to admit that it's out of character.'

'I've changed, Kate,' he said quietly, considering the snow over Baker Street as they arrived at the door to 221B.

'Just as long as you don't change too much,' she said, as she opened the door with the key that he had given her.

She loved coming home to Baker Street. It felt like home now, with more of her own things round her, retrieved by John and Sherlock only the previous weekend in the Freelander. Her resistance to moving in officially was wavering by the day. Her own flat felt cold and alien now, somehow invaded by the sadness not only of Mycroft's intrusion, but also of those early days after she had broken up with David. Time to let it go, maybe. Rent it out to someone from work, and make the move to Baker Street permanent. The only thing preventing her, if she was honest with herself, was the thought of Mycroft Holmes, and whatever plots he might be hatching next.

'This is ridiculous,' she muttered to herself, as she walked home from work a few days later. "I'm making him into some evil, Machiavellian, pantomime villain.'

'First sign of madness,' came a light voice from behind her. Alice, of course, She had forgotten in her pre-occupation that she was finishing early today too.

'Coffee? Alcoholic beverage? Reason to stop muttering to yourself?' Alice asked with a grin.

'Coffee, I think,' Kate said. 'Sorry, I was just thinking about..'

'The evil genius of a brother? I got that impression. You know you talk out loud when you do that?'

'So you keep telling me.'

Ten minutes later, ensconced in two sofas in the corner of the downstairs of the Starbucks round the corner from the hospital, Alice summarised the thoughts that had been running through Kate's head for the last three weeks with an accuracy that even Sherlock himself would have been proud of.

'So basically,' she finished triumphantly. 'You're both enjoying the temporary respite, and at the same time getting twitched with the need to constantly look over your shoulder to see if you're about to be abducted in a large black limousine?'

'Is it that obvious?' Kate asked.

'Given that you jump every time the phone rings at work, or a man in a dark overcoat turns up at the reception desk, yes. Why don't you just talk to him Kate?'

'Sherlock?'

'No, you idiot. The brother with the peculiar name.'

'Mycroft.'

'Thats the one. Goodness is it any surprise that neither of them turned out normal with names like those? What were there parents trying to prove?' Then at Kate's hurt expression. 'Oh you know what I mean. Sherlock seems very nice, and he obviously adores you, but still, he's not exactly Mr Ordinary is he. Then again you wouldn't like him so much if he was.'

'I can't just talk to him,' Kate said, deciding to ignore Alice's character analysis of Sherlock.

'Why not? He's a person isn't he? He has a phone doesn't he? Have you got his number?'

'He put it in my phone when he had it returned to me from Cornwall.'

'There you go, then,' Alice said, practical as ever. 'He obviously wanted you to get in touch, and he got you your phone back. Maybe he's a gentleman after all.'

'He gave me my phone back after he'd hacked into it and downloaded all of my contact details, text messages and browsing history for the last six months,' Kate said dryly.

'Ah,' Alice said, 'point taken, but still. What's the worst that could happen?'

'He'll reduce me to a gibbering wreck, and convince me that I should break up with Sherlock all over again?'

'No, he won't,' Alice said firmly.

'No, you're right, he won't,' Kate said with a sigh.

'So what else?'

'He'll abduct me and have me sent to some MSF refugee camp in the nearest African war zone?'

'Is that likely.'

'No, but it's possible. With Mycroft Holmes, anything is possible.'

'So meet him in a public place. You know what I think?' Alice asked. 'I think that you're scared of meeting him, because you don't really want to know what he's going to do next.'

'You're right,' Kate said with a groan, rubbing her hands across her face. 'I don't want to meet him and I don't want to talk to him, but I can't keep going like this.'

'So phone him,' Alice said, picking Kate's phone up from the table and handing it to her.'

'What now?' Kate asked.

'No time like the present,' Alice said.

Reluctantly, and wondering why she was still letting Alice bully her into doing things after nearly twenty years of friendship, Kate quickly dialed Mycroft's number from her contact list, before she had time to change her mind. He answered on the first ring, of course he did.

'Kate,' he said smoothly. 'How lovely to hear from you, although I must say that I'm surprised.'

'No you're not,' Kate said, 'You knew that I would phone eventually,' realising as she said it that she had known it too.

What Kate heard coming from Mycroft Holmes' mouth down the phone line almost sounded like a chuckle.

'What can I do for you Kate?' he asked. 'I trust that my brother is well?'

'He's fine,' Kate said firmly, 'I want to meet Mycroft, to talk.'

'Of course. How about I pick you up from work tomorrow. I'm unavoidably tied up for the rest of today and as you're at work at eight I presume that meeting before you finish at five wouldn't be possible.'

Kate held the phone away from her ear for a moment and childishly stuck her tongue out at it, much to Alice's amusement. Of course Mycroft would know the details of her rota. 'No, I'll meet you somewhere,' she said, trying to keep her voice professional. 'There's an Italian cafe just down the road from the hospital, on the way to the tube station, do you know it? I'll meet you there at half five,' and having obtained Mycroft's agreement, hung up as quickly as possible.

'Why do I always let you tell me what to do?' she grumbled at Alice.

'Because I'm always right,' Alice said with a grin. 'Are you ready for that proper drink now?'

'Better not,' Kate said, looking at her watch. 'I'd better get back or Sherlock will work out that something's up.'

'As if he wouldn't anyway,' Alice told her as they made their way out of the door.


	24. Chapter 24

If Sherlock had worked it out, then he remained very quiet about it. Walking into the cafe the next evening, Kate saw Mycroft sitting at a secluded table in the corner alone. The table diagonally opposite was occupied by two men who were obviously plain-clothed protection officers or similar, but were making a good play of looking pre-occupied by their coffees while keeping a close eye on everyone who walked in through the door.

'Concerned for your safety, Mycroft?' Kate asked lightly as she sat down and accepted the coffee that he pushed across the table towards her.

'Not on your account. It's a necessary precaution,' he said, and Kate registered that he looked - tired, and older than he had only a few weeks previously. Whatever he had been doing in the Far East had obviously been stressful. Perhaps that explained his lack of interference in life at 221B.

'Are you okay?' she asked suddenly. 'You look tired.'

He narrowed his eyes slightly, obviously surprised by her concern.

'It's not a trick question, Mycroft,' she said finally.

'You really are very perceptive,' Mycroft said slowly, 'John was right. Yes, I'm fine, thank you for your concern. It's just been an - interesting, few weeks.'

Kate nodded, and looked down; unsure what to say next. 'I came here today to ask you to stop interfering,' she said finally. 'To leave me and Sherlock alone; no not that exactly,' she paused and collected her thoughts for a moment. 'Mycroft. you're Sherlock's brother, and whatever he thinks, he does need you. I don't want to interfere with that, but at the same time, I want your assurance that you'll stop trying to come between us.'

Mycroft sat back in his chair and contemplated. 'And in return, you'll do what? Persuade my brother to start working for me again?'

'I'm not brokering a deal,' Kate said frustrated, wondering what on earth she was doing here. 'I just want to stop feeling the need to look over my shoulder all the time.'

She glared at Mycroft, angry despite herself, until eventually he leaned forward and without breaking eye contact said slowly. 'I was under the impression that I had persuaded you that a relationship with my brother was not in his best interest. Tell, me, what changed your mind?'

'He did,' Kate said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 'He told me the truth, all of it.'

'And you believed him?' Mycroft asked softly.

'Oh stop it,' Kate snapped, and Mycroft's expression slipped just slightly in reaction to her.

'It won't work, Mycroft, not again. Why don't you stop trying to manipulate me and just be honest? I don't doubt that you are concerned about Sherlock, but the bottom line is that he's an adult, and whatever his past, he is perfectly capable of making his own decisions.'

'And he has chosen - you,' Mycroft said slowly.

'Precisely. And for what it's worth, and I know how much you hate talking about emotion, so I'll leave love out of this; but we have a good relationship. We care about each other, we're good for each other, we're stronger together as a couple than we ever could be apart, and I just wish,' she paused again and stared into the corner of the room, frustrated at her inability to find the right words. 'I just wish that you could accept that and leave it alone.'

'How do you know that I haven't?' Mycroft asked, considering her carefully.

'Because you're too much like your brother,' Kate said ,without thinking.

Mycroft looked at her, then smiled, and finally let out a low laugh.

'You think that we're alike?' he asked.

'For sheer stubborn, pig headedness, yes,' Kate muttered, wondering how she had mucked this meeting up so badly. 'Look, Mycroft, I'm just trying to save us all some time and effort. Whatever you do, it's not going to work. But its nearly Christmas after all, the season of good will. Can't we just forget this, so that we can all move on with our lives?

'And you would forgive me so easily?' Mycroft asked curiously. 'Would Sherlock?'

'If I asked him to, I think so. He's bored with it anyway; that's what he says. He enjoyed the thrill of the escape, Mycroft, you know that, but now its become a distraction, and you know how he feels about distractions.'

'I do indeed,' Mycroft said softly, 'and you?'

'You were trying to keep your brother safe,' Kate said, 'and I chose to believe that your motives were bred out of concern for him rather than for yourself. They may have been misguided, but trying to protect someone else is never wrong in my book. What's done is done,' she added with a sigh. 'I might not like it, but its time for us all to move on, surely.'

'You didn't answer my question,' Mycroft said levelly. What did it take to provoke this man to a reaction?

'Have I forgiven you? Why, do you need my forgiveness? That would imply that you believe that what you did was wrong, and I don't think that's the case.'

Mycroft gave her a half-smile. 'You are extremely perceptive, Dr Watson, truly. I could use those skills,' he said, as if he was considering something.

Kate's look of disdain made her feelings on that matter abunduntly clear. 'I only work for Sherlock - and the hospital,' she said quickly, before he could continue that thought further. That's not the issue here. You did what you felt you had to do. I might not like it, or understand it, but its done, in the past as I say. I don't expect an apology, Mycroft, what I'm asking for is your reassurance that you will leave us alone from now on.'

'Then you have it,' Mycroft said softly, holding out his hand towards Kate, who shook it reluctantly. Kate considered him for a moment in silence, and then without another word, got up, picked up her coat, and walked out of the cafe without a backward glance.


	25. Chapter 25

'How was Mycroft?' Sherlock asked, as Kate walked through the door of 221B.

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to control her anger. He knew that she hated it when he did that. 'You could at least pretend that you didn't know where I've been,' she said levelly as she hung up her coat.

He looked confused. 'What would be the point of that?' he asked. 'You've obviously been to see Mycroft. Its been eating away at you for days, and you've been jittery since last night. I presume that was when you arranged the meeting?'

'Don't humour me by trying to pretend that you don't know!' Kate exploded, and he laughed and wrapped his arms around her resisting form, as she remained straight backed, arms still down by her side.

'You see?' he said, still laughing. 'I can't win. When I tell you what you've been doing then you get annoyed; when I pretend that I don't know then you get annoyed. What do you want me to do?'

'You could have just talked to me about it, when you worked out that I was going to see him,' Kate said, relenting and wrapping her arms around him, relaxing her head into his chest, allowing herself to enjoy the comfort of his arms around her.

'I assumed that it you wanted me to know, then you would have brought up the subject yourself,' he said quietly. 'This was between you and Mycroft, it had nothing to do with me.'

'It was about him accepting us and leaving us alone,' Kate said, pulling back slightly to look up at him, but Sherlock shook his head.

'I don't need Mycroft's acceptance, Kate, you know that. I never have.'

'But don't you want to stop having to jump at shadows too?'

'I'm not afraid of Mycroft,' he said, an edge of disdain in his voice. 'And I don't believe that he's stupid enough to try to come between us again.

'He told me that he wouldn't,' Kate said. 'but there was more than that. He looked - tired, Sherlock, distracted.'

'Mycroft's never distracted,' Sherlock said, his head tilting slightly as he considered.

'Whatever happened on his recent trip, I think that it's rattled him. He had two protection offices with him. He said that they were there 'in light of recent events,' and it wasn't me that they were there to protect him from. I think that he needs you, Sherlock. So can't you at least try to make your peace with him?'

'You want me to offer to help Mycroft, even assuming that he would accept such an offer, after everything thats happened in the last few weeks?'

'He's still your brother,' Kate said. 'Just - text him or something will you. Let him know that normal service is resumed.'

'He'll ask if he needs my help,' Sherlock said stubbornly,

'Will he? He hasn't so far.'

'Perhaps he doesn't want my help.'

'And perhaps he knows what your answer will be.'

'Kate - ', Sherlock said warningly.

'I think that he might be in trouble, Sherlock, but he's too proud to ask for your help. If you don't help him, I think that you might regret it.'

'You're worried about him?' Sherlock asked, 'you're worried about him after everything that he's put you through?' He shook his head, 'Why do you care?'

'Because I care about you, and because he's your brother,' Kate said, firmly. 'Family is important, Sherlock.'

'Like yours is important to you?' he asked softly.

'That's below the belt,' she said, looking down, then working it out, looked up again to meet his ice-blue gaze. 'It won't work, you know. You can't turn this into an argument to deflect the conversation away from Mycroft.'

'Am I that obvious?'

'Only to me, I suspect.'

Sherlock walked away in frustration, throwing himself down on the sofa, burying both of his hands in his hair, as if he could somehow pull out the relevant stream of thought. 'You're asking me to change my entire personality, Kate.'

'No, I'm asking you to forgive your brother, or if you can't forgive, then at least to try to understand.'

'But I do understand, I understand perfectly,' Sherlock said, hands templed under his chin now, eyes closed. 'Mycroft is unable to keep himself from meddling in my life.'

'Because he cares about you.'

'Is that honestly what you think?' Sherlock snapped, opening his eyes and looking at her.

'Yes, it is,' Kate said, coming to sit next to his prone form on the sofa, holding his gaze, until he shook his head in defeat.

'You're not going to let this go, are you?'

'Look at it this way. Anything that's got Mycroft rattled has to be worth your interest, surely?'

He grinned suddenly, with one of those mercurial changes in mood that she had come to expect from him, and swung his legs off the sofa, nearly knocking Kate onto the floor in the process.

'Where are you off too?' she asked confused, as he reached for his coat and his keys.

'To see Mycroft, of course; see what trouble he's got himself into this time. Come with me, if you want?'

'No, its fine, I'll stay here; let you sort things out with Mycroft,' she said as he paused with one hand on the door lock, before bounding back across the room to kiss her, and then the door had slammed behind him and he was gone.

Kate shook her head at the sound of his footsteps disappearing down the stairs, and then seconds later, the noise of the street door slamming behing him. Unable to resist, she lifted the corner of the curtain to watch his coated figure disappearing with that effortless grace down Baker Street. Life with Sherlock Holmes would never be dull; and she wouldn't have had it any other way.

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><p>So that really is it - at least I think it is... The end of this story; but not of course, the end of Sherlock and Kate, who I suspect will have many more stories to come.<p>

Thank you all so much for reading, and reviewing, and giving me such brilliant ideas. Rewriting this story has been a complete joy, and I think that the second version is a much better and complex story than the first, but I'd love to know what you think. Also any more ideas for what Sherlock and Kate did next, please let me know!


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